The Futūḥāt Project: Quotations

29 March 2024

Our recognition (maʿrifah) of the Lord is newly found based on the recognition of the self. This is the proof-text: ‘Who recognizes one’s self, recognizes one’s Lord.’

Book 12, Chapter 73

27 March 2024

Spirits are divested of Nature-based mixings (characteristics).

Book 11, Chapter 73

26 March 2024

You are an instrument put to use for the Hand of the True, All-Powerfully able to choose you and purify you and beautify you with His qualities.

Book 11, Chapter 73

22 March 2024

He exalted said, the turners, the worshipers, the praisers, the travelers (al-tawbah 9:112). ‘Travel’ is walking across the Earth for the sake of learning lessons, by observing the traces of civilizations past and which of the communities that went before were destroyed.

Book 11, Chapter 73

21 March 2024

He sees His self f and He loves Her, because ‘He is beauty, and He loves the beautiful.’

Book 11, Chapter 73

20 March 2024

If you see an ʿārif* who presumes to be an ʿārif, and you see him becoming mighty over the offspring of this world when he thinks he sees them having (inappropriate) majesty and force, then learn that he is not an ʿārif, nor someone who has a tasting.

*ʿárif: the one who recognizes the Divine everywhere

Book 11, Chapter 73

19 March 2024

His single Oneness is external to the ruling determination of the intellect and beyond its limit.

Book 11, Chapter 73

14 March 2024

The single oneness belongs to God, and the unification of diverse entities belongs to the creature – not single oneness. This is because creatures cannot understand themselves except by another, not by themselves, so they will never acquire a whiff of single oneness.

Book 11, Chapter 73

13 March 2024

Thinking is part of the natural element rule. This is why the angels do not speculate, while human beings do – because humans are composed of elemental Nature and intellect.

Book 11, Chapter 73

12 March 2024

God is the Guide!

Book 11, Chapter 73

8 March 2024

No one celebrates God but God, and no one praises hu but hu.

Book 11, Chapter 73

7 March 2024

We are stopped from discussing the station of the messenger and the prophet who is someone with the Law, because of a stipulation of the people of the path concerning what they report about stations and states: that the discussion should be from tasting. And we have no such tasting, nor does anyone else, nor anyone who is not a prophet who has a sharīʿah – with regard to the Law-making prophethood – nor anyone with regard to the message. How can we speak about a station we have not come to, or about a state we have not tasted? Not I, nor anyone else who is not a prophet with a sharīʿah from God, or a messenger. Speaking about it is forbidden to us. We will speak only about what we have a taste of.

Book 11, Chapter 73

6 March 2024

The Spirit – the Spirit who helps, the Holy Spirit – in-blows into our souls Divine inspiration and knowledge of His Side, the end result of the kindness that God provides from Himself to whomever He pleases among His creatures.

Book 11, Chapter 73

4 March 2024

Abū Yazīd al-Basṭāmī was asked, ‘Does the ʿārif* sin?’ He said, ‘The affair of God is a predestined measure.’ Thus, disobedience occurs among the ʿārifīn, the people of grace, according to the decree predetermined – so as to play out the decision that had come before.

* ʿárif (pl. ʿārifīn): the one who recognizes the Divine everywhere

Book 11, Chapter 73

29 February 2024

The complete inheritor is the one who is given in inheritance knowledge, practice, and state.

Book 11, Chapter 73

28 February 2024

He ﷺ‎ said, ‘The “ones who know” are inheritors of the prophets.’ Our teacher Abū Madyan used to say about this station: ‘One of the signs of the sincerity of the aspiration of the one who aspires (the murīd, the student) is your fleeing from creation; and one of the signs of the sincerity of your fleeing from creation is when your being belongs to the True; and one of the signs of the sincerity of your being belonging to the True is your return to creation.’ This is the condition of inheriting the Prophet ﷺ‎ had.

Book 11, Chapter 73

27 February 2024

God is the one who inspires.

Book 11, Chapter 73

26 February 2024

People who are according to the rule of what is cast to them do not operate except from a Divine command; thus, they are no true friend or companion to anyone, ever. Whoever among the faithful would take a true friend other than God is unaware of what the station of true friendship entails. If they knew what true friendship and companionship were, and they were fully faithful to these rights with their true friend – because the true friend is one’s real determiner – they would have disproved their faith. When they give friends the rights of true friendship, they vacate the rights of God; thus, there is no true friend except God. The station is truly magnificent, and its affair is momentous indeed. God is the giver of success, no Lord but Him.

Book 11, Chapter 73

22 February 2024

The Prophet did not have a ‘true friend’, nor was he was a ‘companion’ (ṣāḥib) to anything but his prophethood. In this way, the faithful have no true friend or companion except their faith – just as the king has no companion except his kingdom.

Book 11, Chapter 73

21 February 2024

How many a friend of God, great in stature, long of life, dies and has not achieved a prostration of the heart – and knowledge that there even is such a thing as a prostration of the heart at all, even though they are verified as having spiritual authority and an anchored stance! Indeed, if the prostration of the heart is achieved, you do not raise your head ever from your prostration.

Book 11, Chapter 73

20 February 2024

Abū Yazīd al-Basṭāmī […] was asked about zuhd (asceticism). He said: ‘It is nothing; it has no value in my eyes. I was an ascetic for only three days. The first day I relinquished this world. The second day I relinquished the next world. The third day I relinquished everything other than God. I was asked by God, “What do you want?” I replied, “I wish to not want! If only I would be the one wanted (murād) – and You would be the One wanting (murīd) me!”’ He took zuhd to be the relinquishing of everything other than God.

Book 11, Chapter 73

19 February 2024

The ascetics […] prefer the True over the creation and over themselves.

Book 11, Chapter 73

16 February 2023

The Ṣūfīs are the ones who collect and gain the generous characteristics. Then also, they – God be pleased with them – know that the matter necessitates that no one be able to please the creatures of God by any one characteristic – and that as much as they please Zayd, they make ʿAmr annoyed. Thus, when they see that achieving a way-station of universal, generous characteristics with everyone is impossible, they consider instead who is the priority that they should practice generous characteristics toward. They will not pay attention to whoever becomes upset by that.

Book 11, Chapter 73

15 February 2024

This world here is an abode of testing trial, and all individuals will gather according to their intention and their experience.

Book 11, Chapter 73

14 February 2024

Ṣūfīs […] are the people of generous characteristics. It is said, ‘Whoever exceeds you in generous characteristics exceeds you in taṣawwuf.’* Their station is the coming together into a single heart. They drop the ‘third yāʾ’,* and they do not say, ‘mine’ or ‘I have’ or ‘my property’ – that is, they do not attach anything to themselves; they have no possession except the good character of God. They are equable with the whole of creation (‘everything other than God’), with their acknowledgment that whatever the creation has belongs to the creation – not seeking from people to have this station.

*taṣawwuf: the Ṣūfī way
*third yāʾ: The third letter yāʾ in kitābī is ‘my’, as in ‘my book’.

Book 11, Chapter 73

13 February 2024

He exalted said, I created the jinn and humans only to worship Me (al-dhāriyāt 51:56) – that is, ‘so that they will be humbled for Me; and they will not be humbled for Me until they recognize Me in the things. Thus, they will be humbled for Me, not for that which I manifest among them, nor that which is manifested in their core beings – given that they are visibly emergent sites for Me. Therefore, their being is I, and they do not witness in their entities anything but their being’ – so understand this. God is the Guide, the illuminator of sights!

Book 11, Chapter 73

12 February 2024

Abū Yazīd said, ‘O Lord, how shall I approach You?’ He said, ‘By means of what is not Mine: humility and dependency.’

Book 11, Chapter 73

9 February 2024

There is no more fine and nigh-invisible flowing of the True to the created beings, and the flowing of some of them to others. It is His word, We shall display Our signs in the horizons, and in your selves (fuṣṣilat 41:53). ‘Signs’ here are the indications that they are a site for the visible emergence of the True.

Book 11, Chapter 73

8 February 2024

The True has reported in the authentic report, ‘God is the hearing of the creature and its seeing and its hand’.

Book 11, Chapter 73

1 February 2024

The people are veiled from seeing the things as being from God.

Book 11, Chapter 73

31 January 2024

God is the One to seek help from.

Book 11, Chapter 73

29 January 2024

When God speaks in revelation, it is like an iron chain against rocks that makes the angels swoon as if struck by thunderbolts.

Book 11, Chapter 73

26 January 2024

The intended goal for everything other than God is that it worship God.

Book 11, Chapter 73

24 January 2024

Learn that the Men of God in this path are the ones named by ‘the world of breaths’, and this is a name that is universal over all of them. They are positioned over many degrees and have different states.

Book 11, Chapter 73

23 January 2024

The being of your ʿayn* is the Being of the True.

* ʿayn: eye, point, dot, source, well, entity

Book 11, Chapter 73

19 January 2024

Ignorance is non-being.

Book 11, Chapter 73

18 January 2024

The True clothes the ʿayn* f with a robe of His Being, so her self is invisible in her being, and her being is an ʿayn of the One who gave her being. Thus, only the True emerges visibly – no one else. The ʿayn of the creature m stays in his root, but he is amply provided for as long as he has with himself some knowledge of his dhát* and the One who clothed him with a robe of His Being, and he recognizes his similarity to other creatures and sees the cosmos – piece by piece – with the (seeing) eye (ʿayn) of being of (belonging to) his Lord (who becomes the eye by which he sees).

* ʿayn: eye, point, dot, source, well, entity
* dhát: essence, core; essential identity

Book 11, Chapter 73

17 January 2024

There is no division in your core being.

Book 11, Chapter 73

15 January 2024

The time period in reality – in the true dimension, as we have informed you – is a relation (of one body, e.g. the Sun, to another), not an existing thing.

Book 11, Chapter 73

12 January 2024

Learn that the True exalted beyond, concerning the vision of His creatures of His, has two correlations: a correlation of transcendence and a correlation of making an allegory in the imagination. The transcendence correlation is His tajallì* in there is nothing like Him (al-shūrā 42:11 ). And the other correlation is His tajallì in his ﷺ‎ word, ‘Worship God as if you see Him’; and his word, ‘God is in the qiblah of the one praying’; and His word, Wherever you turn, there indeed is a face of God (al-baqarah 2:115). And ‘there’ is an adjective of place, and ‘face of God’ is His dhát* and His truth.

* tajallì: brilliant radiance of Being; Divine self-disclosure
* dhát: essence, core; essential identity

Book 11, Chapter 73

8 January 2024

The prophethood (nubuwwat f) that was cut off by the being of the Messenger of God ﷺ‎ is in fact the prophethood of making Law, not her station. There is no Law that will abrogate his ﷺ‎ Law, and no other Law will add to its rule.

Book 11, Chapter 73

7 January 2024

God’s angels course to us
so as to inform us about the certain annunciation.

They speak of someone protected from error, greatly knowing,
free from the confusion of guesses.

Book 11, Chapter 73

22 December 2023

The universe comes out in the form and image of Divine names so as to be His manifest brilliance; thereafter, seen in being is only hu – exalted beyond – no god but hu.

Book 11, Chapter 72

21 December 2023

The gift of knowledge of Him […] is the most noble of gifts He gives to whoever seeks Him.

Book 11, Chapter 72

19 December 2023

‘Satanic’ is a quality of distance from a kindness of God, not distance from God, because everything is in the grip of God and in the Eye of God.

Book 11, Chapter 72

18 December 2023

There is nothing with being or described with being except the True accompanies it – as He said, He is with you wherever you are (al-ḥadīd 57:4).

Book 11, Chapter 72

15 December 2023

Abū Saʿīd al-Kharrāz was asked, ‘By what do you recognize God?’ He replied, ‘By His combining of two opposites’ – meaning, in His description. Then he recited, hu is the First, the Last, the Outward, the Inward (al-ḥadīd 57:3).

Book 11, Chapter 72

14 December 2023

The Muslim is the one who concedes and consigns to God and sees that the circumstances – all of them – are in the Hand of God. So a Muslim will not oppose anything but what one is told to oppose, so then our opposition will actually be an act of worship (ʿibādah).

Book 11, Chapter 72

8 December 2023

How inaccessible is the maʿrifah* of God beyond the people of examination and thinking – and how close she is to the family of God! May God make us part of His family!

* maʿrifah: recognition; the ʿārif is the person with maʿrifah and ʿirfān, recognizing Divinity everywhere.

Book 11, Chapter 72

7 December 2023

The hands on the human beings are like the wings of a bird. You see – just as they (the birds) celebrate God on the Earth with their feet while walking, similarly they celebrate in the water with their hands when they ‘walk’ (swim) there. And human beings walk on their feet, aided by moving their arms as they walk.

As the invisible (inward) of the human beings, their spirit, is an angel in the true dimension – one of the guardian angels, the third kind of angels – and God reported about the angels that they have wings, not specifying one angel apart from another, so we know certainly that our souls, as angels stationed to guard these physical bodies, are beings with wings. And these natural bodies are made to veil us from perceiving them.

Book 11, Chapter 72

5 December 2023

The Prophet ﷺ‎ has reported that the one who makes an effort (the mujtahid) is rewarded even if he errs, and he did not specify that this is only for the branch (the legal detail) and not the basic root; no, it is universal. And His word is confirmed: My kindness vastly encompasses everything (al-aʿrāf 7:156), and His word, ‘My kindness outstrips My wrath.’

Book 11, Chapter 72

4 December 2023

No one looks at any object of worship but they are looking at hu. And this is why, on the Day of Arising for Judgment, He will not hold them accountable for anything except their demanding the objects of worship (to be their God), because that is part of injustices committed by worshipers. It is for these injustices that God will recompense them with wretchedness, not for their worship. The worship is accepted; this is why there is the gentle inclination toward kindness, despite the eternal residence in Jahannam. You see, they are her people.

Book 11, Chapter 72

30 November 2023

The True is transcendent above restrictions concerning His creation, so He arranges their (the creatures’) affairs as He pleases.

Book 11, Chapter 72

29 November 2023

There is no comparative excellence of one Divine name over the others.

Book 11, Chapter 72

28 November 2023

If we are afflicted with feelings of lordliness, we are still basically devoted slaves, humble with slave-basis, not liberated. We are not leaders and masters, so concern for the basics is the return to them – and to Him returns the matter, all of it (Hūd 11:123). And this is the root, so understand this verse f with an understanding that honors her, possessing knowledge. And indeed no trace from some chance event disproves the root nor the matter as it really is.

Book 11, Chapter 72

27 November 2023

From Him is the gift plentiful and the bestowal overflowing.

Book 11, Chapter 72

24 November 2023

Does anyone other than God see? Is anyone other than God seen?

Book 11, Chapter 72

22 November 2023

Being is a single abode, and the Cherisher of the abode is One, and the people are the dependent family of God, He encompassing them all in this abode.

Book 11, Chapter 72

21 November 2023

May God give me and you understanding of the intents of the Law, and let not what is apparent veil us from what is invisible.

Book 11, Chapter 72

20 November 2023

Rush forward to accept His rule, whichever kind it may be, with expanded chest, with pure soul, if you want to be faithful. As for people with abundant intelligence – let them rely on and be at ease with God, and the Divine rule will be at ease with them.

Book 11, Chapter 72

17 November 2023

As for us, we know that the Lawgiver is God and that the Messenger is one conveying for God His rule for what God shows him, not speaking from his lower self – It is only revelation revealed (al-najm 53:4).

Book 11, Chapter 72

16 November 2023

The complete intellect knows that he was created for his Lord, not for another. He knows in himself that the One who created him is not Someone he can compete against in any way, and he will not oppose Him in any ruling.

Book 11, Chapter 72

15 November 2023

There is no kinship between the intellect and jealousy (ghayrat) in the true dimension, and therefore God created the intellect in the human being to repel the domination of excessive appetite and attachments, which are the consequences of jealousy in the human being.

Book 11, Chapter 72

14 November 2023

The qualities of the True are not to be taken on unrestrictedly; no, their situations and contexts are designated.

Book 11, Chapter 72

13 November 2023

If you say I am, I am not other than hu;
and hu is I, because hu is not knowable.
As I am ignorant of who hu is, I am;
and hu is I – so who is the one who is doing?

Book 11, Chapter 72

10 November 2023

He sought – and He obligated His seeking it – to create for Himself a form in which He would see Himself.

Book 11, Chapter 72

9 November 2023

Abū Yazīd was told, ‘Approach Me by means of that which is not Mine: humility and dependency.’

Book 11, Chapter 72

8 November 2023

He said, There is nothing like Him (al-shūrā 42:11) – so He banned the world from making a presumed likeness to Him.

Book 11, Chapter 72

7 November 2023

The truths do not change.

Book 11, Chapter 72

6 November 2023

Honey from the bee corresponds to the knowledge that the Prophet ﷺ brought as Qurʾān and as reports.

Book 11, Chapter 72

3 November 2023

The dispatching of messengers from the Side of God to His creatures is so that they may explain to them what will save them and make them ultimately felicitous, if they put something into practice or avoid something.

Book 11, Chapter 72

2 November 2023

As the angels have no greed in them – they are in essence obedient, and no hindrance coming from greed, which will divert them from obedience to their Lord, ever arises – so the dominion of greed does not appear in the potentiality of the angels. You see, there is no contender they have; they have intellects with no opponent.

Book 11, Chapter 72

1 November 2023

Seeking the One precludes seeking the many.

Book 11, Chapter 72

30 October 2023

He avenges and torments with a quality of wrath; and He overlooks and He lets be with a quality of generosity; and He guards and He protects with a quality of kindness.

Book 11, Chapter 72

27 October 2023

Spacious vastness is a kindness of God, a kindness that vastly encompasses everything; and constriction is a diminishing of God’s kindness – despite the fact that kindness vastly encompasses it also, where kindness brought constriction into being.

Book 11, Chapter 72

26 October 2023

The mysteries of God about the things are not fenced in; no, ignited in every moment for the people of hearts is something known only to God. But the general population does not know this. This is why the ones singled out among the slaves of God say, ‘There is no repetition’ – because the vastness of the Divine is infinite. In fact, it is the similarities of the images that veil the hearts from this perception – so the general population imagines there is repetition. God is Vast, All-Knowing (al-baqarah 2:247). The one who verifies for oneself the being of this name the Vast will never speak of repetition. As for the others – No, they are in confusion about the New Creation (qāf 50:15).

Book 11, Chapter 72

25 October 2023

The enabled being and the maʿrifah (recognition) of the new being are found only on account of the completeness of the step-level of being and the completeness of the step-level of maʿrifah, not on account of the complete perfection of God; no, He is complete perfection in Himself, whether or not the universe comes to exist and whether or not the New learns maʿrifah. It is just as in the true dimension the enabled being does not recognize hu – only itself.

Book 11, Chapter 72

20 October 2023

The True accepts their request and finds them and creates them for themselves and for the sake of their request – not from a need arising in Him for them.

Book 11, Chapter 72

18 October 2023

The things in the state before their enabled becoming comes into being are seeking and searching for their being.

Book 11, Chapter 72

17 October 2023

One does not say to a thing, Be! and it becomes, until one intensely desires it. This is why He said, In her (the Garden) you will have what your souls intensely desire (fuṣṣilat 41:31).

Book 11, Chapter 72

16 October 2023

There is nothing but slave and Lord, and the slave is not distinguished from the Lord except by neediness.

Book 11, Chapter 72

15 October 2023

One will return to one’s root, certainly, in the end.

Book 10, Chapter 72

9 October 2023

He exalted shines brilliantly in tajallì to the things that He desires to bring out from the state of non-existence, to His name Light exalted. And the lights are vastly diffused over these entities with this tajallì; and they are readied thereby to accept being brought out – the readying of the fetus in the womb of his mother, during the fourth month of his being borne in pregnancy, for the in-breathing of the Spirit into him. And it is said to him during this readying, Be! – and he becomes at his right time without any delay. So look at this wisdom f – how magnificently, brilliantly shining she is!

Book 10, Chapter 72

6 October 2023

Every moment has a witness;
the one with eyes to witness recognizes it.

Book 10, Chapter 72

5 October 2023

If not for the tajallì* of hu to the entities, the attributes would not appear –
– not ‘is’ (verb), not ‘a being’ (noun), not ‘becoming’.
This is why He is called dahr (eternal), having no ending
or beginning.

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

Book 10, Chapter 72

2 October 2023

If one arises, one arises by Him – or rests, rests by Him.

Book 10, Chapter 72

29 September 2023

Knowledge is the most overall-seeing attribute granted to the human animal,
and the one with knowledge is protected, well sheltered.

Book 10, Chapter 72

28 September 2023

I saw in the universe someone whose Desiring said,
when He turned to the things, Be! and they were.

As soon as my eye f could verify for herself His creative procedure –
as by Him is one’s core, no one else – I became.

Book 10, Chapter 72

27 September 2023

Death is a taking-away, not an annihilation, because one transfers from this world to the next.

Book 10, Chapter 72

26 September 2023

Every occurrence and non-occurrence is the intended goal of the True.

Book 10, Chapter 72

25 September 2023

The actions of the created beings are what are measured out vis-à-vis God; and the being of their means and ropes (secondary causes) – all of them, in the origin – is vis-à-vis God. And the creature has no inclusion; the created being has no inclusion in actions at root, except with regard to one’s being their explicit site and the implicit site – the active (effector) noun and the passive (effector) noun.

Book 10, Chapter 72

22 September 2023

The creature is a site for the emergence of the Divine verbs.

Book 10, Chapter 72

21 September 2023

If it is the Creator who is the Designer, then there is no shortcoming in the design at all, because each is the intended goal – as there is no shortfall connected to (Divine) Desiring. Every occurrence and non-occurrence is the intended goal of the True.

Book 10, Chapter 72

20 September 2023

When the human being repels harm from himself, he is not prosecuted by the True.

Book 10, Chapter 72

19 September 2023

When the Pen m wrote, he made order and he placed everything in its proper place; and he valued its proper weight according to the balancing of the Scale.

Book 10, Chapter 72

18 September 2023

The finest design is humanity f, and He paints her with faith in the fahwānīyah* Presence, in the seen realm of iḥsānīyah.*

* fahwānīyah: ‘Divine address heard face to face in the intermediary world’.
* iḥsānīyah: ‘Worship God as if you see Him.’

Book 10, Chapter 72

14 September 2023

As for the one who is oppressively dark to his soul f among the people of shirk* – his own soul will prosecute him before God for her having been oppressed; and there is nothing more intense than oppression of the soul. Do you see the one who kills his soul – that the Garden is forbidden to him?

* shirk: associating gods with God; attributing God’s actions to putative gods.

Book 10, Chapter 72

13 September 2023

Do you see Death? It is an idea – a meaning attributed, adjoined – that is an expression for the separation of the spirit from the body; and God makes an image of him on the Day of Arising before the people in the form of a gray ram, and he will be placed between the Garden and the Fire and will be immolated. It is this way for these likenesses.

Book 10, Chapter 72

12 September 2023

Every worshipper among the idolaters has clung to an imaged likeness of his object of worship that he imagined in himself. So for him this imagined form becomes embodied; and He inserts the embodied image into the Fire with the idolater, because he worshipped only this image that he clung to in himself.

Book 10, Chapter 72

8 September 2023

The rule of God in Nature is greater than that in the skies and the Earth, because the two are from the world of Nature, according to us. From Nature emerges every mass, body, and embodiment in the world of bodies, upper and lower.

Book 10, Chapter 72

7 September 2023

When He radiated brilliantly
with the crescents

To my eye-witness
from behind my gauzy curtain,

And stretched out to me the Right Hand
for the sake of my kiss,

I did not see another.
Lo, He was entirely my whole.

Book 10, Chapter 72

6 September 2023

My love is my station.

Book 10, Chapter 72

5 September 2023

The soul f – if she gets into the habit of breaking a covenant and misappropriating it, nothing from her will ever be brought to life.

Book 10, Chapter 72

4 September 2023

The animals – all of them, according to us – are spiritual beings with intellects with which they understand God; and this is why He exalted said about them, Each knows his ṣalāt and his celebration (tasbīḥ) (al-nūr 24:41).

Book 10, Chapter 72

1 September 2023

The ʿārif* always looks to each enabling, one after another, for the special face that is from God to one. One does not look for the cause – which God informs (us) is from Him and its anchor is in Him – in the direction of causality or conditionally. This is the view of the people of the path of God among our friends.

* ʿárif: the one who recognizes the Divine everywhere

Book 10, Chapter 72

31 August 2023

By the kindness f of God, every being other than God is made alive and given sustenance. So kindness is all-encompassing, and she is in every place provided commensurate with that place.

Book 10, Chapter 72

29 August 2023

Even though you are a being, the ruling property of the enabled being is non-being. The verse that rings the truest that the ʿarab ever said is this statement of Labīd:

       Is not everything else but God bāţil (null, nothing)?

And ‘nothing’ is non-being.

Book 10, Chapter 72

25 August 2023

The one who seeks the One in its ʿayn* will not receive anything but confusion, because one cannot disengage – in the seeker and the sought – from the collective whole and the manifold. And how can one deny the many, when one has condemned oneself to be a seeker and (condemned) that which one seeks to be something sought?

* ʿayn: eye, point, dot, source, well, entity

Book 10, Chapter 72

24 August 2023

The True does not demand from us faith in anything but the Oneness (tawḥīd) of the Divinity alone, and this means that we should know that there is nothing but a single god, no god but hu. And then He said, al-Raḥmān, al-raḥīm (the Gentle) (al-baqarah 2:163).

Book 10, Chapter 72

23 August 2023

All in being is truth.

Book 10, Chapter 72

22 August 2023

I do not see other than me, but hu is not I;
and that one (I) is His site of His shining brilliant tajallì,* having the slightest of veils.

* tajallì: Divine self-disclosure

Book 10, Chapter 72

21 August 2023

When you remember Him in yourself – and the Qurʾān is a dhikr – the True remembers you in Himself in a way the slave does not realize: that God is remembering you. In fact, when God remembers you in Himself and remembers you in a Presence of timelessness in which there is no New event, then the slave has with this dhikr a foothold in timelessness – in a place the True has made you Present in Himself by dhikr.

Book 10, Chapter 72

18 August 2023

ʿĀʾishah said about Messenger of God ﷺ‎: ‘He used to remember God all of his life.’ She universalized the whole of his moments, while awake and while sleeping, while moving (doing) and being still (not doing). She meant that he performed only, and was in any of his moments only in, a matter that brought him closer to God – because He sits with the ones who are remembering Him with dhikr.*

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

Book 10, Chapter 72

17 August 2023

No one recognizes the One except the one who is one.

Book 10, Chapter 72

16 August 2023

As God created you ‘flush against the image’ f (Adam was created upon His form), and she necessitates an inaccessible might, He intended that you have some free will and choice in action.

Book 10, Chapter 72

11 August 2023

The minerals are the (entities) most recognizing of God, and the most worshipful toward God compared with the rest of the reproduced beings. They were in fact created from recognition (maʿrifah), not having intellect or lust, and not discharging; they are discharged only. They are the objects of discharging by another, not by themselves. And there is no one who discharges but God, so they are the discharged by the discharging of God.

Book 10, Chapter 72

10 August 2023

You are, during every moment, a traveler.

Book 10, Chapter 72

7 August 2023

Learn that in being there is not a single moment in which there is not a face (wajh) belonging to God, preserving its being.

Book 10, Chapter 72

4 August 2023

Nothing holds back the one whose vision is the True.

Book 10, Chapter 72

3 August 2023

His tajallì is constant;
His drawing nigh is inescapable.
That which is between this and that is only that
you are indeed sleeping today.

Book 10, Chapter 72

2 August 2023

Learn that God forever gives brilliant tajallì, constantly, not letting timings restrict His tajallì.*

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

Book 10, Chapter 72

1 August 2023

ʿAlī bin al-Jahm said:

(We place our trust in the Cherisher of the sky,
and we submit willingly to the ways and means of destiny.)
The gates of the kings are guarded by gatekeepers,
but the gate of God is a ramshackle open courtyard.

Book 10, Chapter 72

31 July 2023

The Divine tajallì* is an opened door for the one who wants to enter.

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

Book 10, Chapter 72

28 July 2023

He praises Himself only through us, and we are ennobled and raised to a sweeping, panoramic (sharf) level only by Him. So we are by Him and for Him.

Book 10, Chapter 72

27 July 2023

The highest of stations is the confirmation of the Divine and the one subject to the Divine, and the Lord and the lorded over – that is the perfectly complete Presence of the Divine.

Book 10, Chapter 72

25 July 2023

Just as in the configuration of the human being there is something that God singles out, and He makes it more excellent than the rest of the human configuration f, and He makes it the imām for her – and this is the heart – so, similarly, He made in the configuration of the prayer something that is the most elevated in the prayer. This is the movement in which one says, samiʿ Allāhu li-man ḥamidah (‘God hears the one who praises Him’), because the one praying right then is a substitute taking the place of God – just as the heart is a substitute taking the place of God in supervising the body.

Book 10, Chapter 72

24 July 2023

He made the heavenly motions, which are the orbits, to affect the four elements (water, air, fire, earth) to generate what would be born from them. You are the four elements, because you are composed of four mixtures (humors); and their combination is your physical being itself – which is the body.

Book 10, Chapter 72

21 July 2023

That which is fixed for Him in the determinative property when there is no world is also fixed for Him when the world exists; and He has this absolute Oneness both during the existence of the world and during the non-existence of the world.

Book 10, Chapter 72

20 July 2023

The human being is under the ruling force of each breath. And each breath is an arrival after a long journey.

Book 10, Chapter 72

19 July 2023

Perplexity f is perplexed about herself, because she does not find anyone who is perplexed by her! And the confusion by which she imagines the universe to be described is not as she imagines; no, this is the confusion of confusion. Thus, there is nothing then but hu – and confusion.

Book 10, Chapter 72

18 July 2023

The Law comes down, the First Intellect accepts, and the command is carried out. The New things renew, while the power is Old – primordial and independent – and the scales are set, and the words are never exhausted, and the existent things never go far away.

Book 10, Chapter 72

17 July 2023

Inaccessibly Mighty, the One who has Inaccessible Might and Majesty, and Greatness. Nothing there is but God, the Necessary Being, the One in His dhāt,* the Manifold in His names and His ruling forces, the All-Powerful over the impossible! So how much more so over the merely enabled beings and the possible, when they are under His rule! By God, He only is God, and from Him and to Him returns the affair – all of it.

* dhát: essence, core; essential identity

Book 10, Chapter 72

14 July 2023

The physical senses are a site for His visible emergence, despite their limitation and their coarseness and their shortcomings.

Book 10, Chapter 72

13 July 2023

The moment of the Divine Be! is the moment of the creation of the created being.

Book 10, Chapter 72

7 July 2023

The length of time of the glance is exactly the length of time to connect to the thing glanced at, however far away it may be. The farthest-away things perceptible by the senses are the fixed stars, which are in the orbital mansions, and as soon as you look at them the glance is attached to them. This is physical rapidity – so what do you think about the rapidity of meanings stripped from restrictions, how rapidly they will penetrate?

Book 10, Chapter 72

4 July 2023

Consider then how strangely wondrous is the matter of Being: the ʿayn* of the seeker of the benefit of being is the very ʿayn of the Benefactor.

* ʿayn: eye, point, dot, source, well, entity

Book 10, Chapter 72

29 June 2023

I am upon clarification from the One who raises and makes ascend the universe, its heights and its depths, with each breath, for the alteration of the stabilized entities in a single moment. Yes, the root that the entirety of created beings return to – and this is God – described Himself with being every day upon a radiant brilliance (al-Raḥmān 55:29). So it is impossible that a thing remain in the universe in one single state over two time periods. The states differ because of the differences in the tajalliyāt in the Divine shuʾūn each day.*

* tajalliyāt (sg. tajallì): brilliant radiances of Being; Divine self-disclosures
* shuʾūn (sg. shaʾn): radiant brilliances

Book 10, Chapter 72

28 June 2023

The Kaʿbah of God is not other than our dhāt,
a dhāt (essential being – and heart of the cosmos and of the human being, made up) of veils covering the God-fearing, a teaching sign.*

* al-maʿlamah: ‘The place in which is known the existence of the thing’ (Lane).

Book 10, Chapter 72

27 June 2023

You see, the matters – if you relate them to the True – are not comparatively placed in vantage positions; but if you relate them to you, they are comparatively placed with regard to you. The completed ones with us are those whose matters with regard to themselves are as they are related to God, and they are the ones who see a True perspective in every situation.

Book 10, Chapter 72

22 June 2023

The tajallì* is never ceasing, never discontinued –
so the vision of the True is never not abundant.
It is endlessly everlasting to endlessly everlasting,
and tenderly caring for to tenderly caring for –
And transferring to place.
hu is higher than place.

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

Book 10, Chapter 72

21 June 2023

The ʿārifūn* have no veils over their ears, so they are responders – ceaselessly.

* ʿārifūn: those who recognize the Divine everywhere

Book 10, Chapter 72

20 June 2023

God says, O you who are faithful, respond to God and the messenger when He calls you (al-anfāl 8:24). As the messenger calls based on a command of God, so God is the one responded to.

Book 10, Chapter 72

19 June 2023

God did not create the jinn and the human (ins) except to worship Him – so He called them, as He created them for Him.

Book 10, Chapter 72

15 June 2023

He is not like this, and He is not like that – given that He said, There is nothing that is like Him (al-shūrā 42:11), and Exalt transcendently your Lord, a Lord of Might, Inaccessible beyond what they would ascribe (al-ṣāffāt 37:180). The Inaccessible, the Mighty prevents anyone from ascribing anything to hu; and to exalt transcendently is to free hu from whatever they would ascribe to hu. And transcendent freeing-from makes Him remote from being attributed with having a partner or a child or something else.

Book 10, Chapter 72

13 June 2023

God desires from the slave, through what He alerts us to, that one not do any of the actions that originate from one in the outward matter except when one knows that God is the real Doer of that action – in His word, ‘I become his ears and his eyes, and by Me he hears and by Me he sees, and by Me he moves.’

Book 10, Chapter 72

12 June 2023

His Being is according to the property of the Necessary.

Book 10, Chapter 72

9 June 2023

There is no partner with the True; no, hu is One.

Book 10, Chapter 72

8 June 2023

God is with the creature in one’s vision to the extent one knows Him by Him.

Book 10, Chapter 72

7 June 2023

He calls to you from very near.

Book 10, Chapter 72

6 June 2023

The human being is the nearest indication to Him, given one’s being a being created ‘flush against His image’.

Book 10, Chapter 72

5 June 2023

The dhikr of God for us is greater than our dhikr of Him, unless our remembering is by Him, not by us. Our dhikr by Him is greater in encompassing, because in our dhikr there is us and Him – in His dhikr there is Him without us!

Book 10, Chapter 72

1 June 2023

Every being except God is a dependent correlation to hu, not an independent entity.

Book 10, Chapter 72

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