IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF

MOSES
A Contemporary Sufi Commentary on the
Story of God’s Confidant (kalīm Allāh) in
the Qur’ān

By the Moroccan Sufi Master

SHAYKH MOHAMED FAOUZI AL-
KARKARI

Translated by YOUSEF CASEWIT, Ph.D.

Edited by KHALID WILLIAMS
 ‫نا‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ذ‬ ‫أ‬

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‫ا‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ا‬

‫ا‬
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‫ا‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ةإ‬ ‫لو‬ ‫و‬

 Introduction

The journey to God comprises stations where travelers halt,

waystations where they dwell, and meadows where devout
invokers revel, each in accordance with their preparedness
and dedication.1 For the disparity between the levels of
arrival (wuṣūl)—though there is no actual arrival—is in
accordance with the disparity of saintly aspirations.
Moreover, the secrets of proximity upon the carpet of direct
witnessing (shuhūd) differ according to the different states of
the servants.
Since the Path is wild and fraught with peril, there is need
for the direction of a Shaykh who has insight into the
maladies of the soul, and a firm rooting in the presences of
the Holy. This is because deliverance is realized at his hands,
and the locks of the unseen are opened through his
luminosity, and through his guidance and saintly aspiration
the aims and furthest ends are identified. Spiritual objectives
are achieved through him, and disciples attain the stations of
the passionate lovers through his companionship. This is why
God alludes to mustering one’s aspiration to follow such
Shaykhs in His holy book when He says: Follow the way of
those who turn in repentance unto Me2, and when He says:
O you who believe! Reverence your Lord, and be among
the truthful.3
Know, may God assist you with His Light, that the divine
knowledge that God’s folk transmit to one another is
dependent upon fruitional experience (dhawq) and direct
witnessing (shuhūd), for it lies beyond the fantasies of the
intellects and the stages of delimitation. Given that this is the
case, this direct knowledge is not attained by reading books,
but rather is received from its folk when the Shaykh’s sun
reflects upon the disciple’s heart, till the latter’s privative
earth shines with the Light of its Lord4. Whoever wishes to
attain direct knowledge of God in any other way is wishing
for the impossible. In placing this book between your hands,
our goal is to rouse the resolve of those who seek to traverse
the stations of certainty, and to describe the Path to those
who embark upon the vessel of divine success with spiritual
exertion and sincere companionship, and so that the wayfarer
may have clarity in this matter, and discernment between
what is correct and what is false. This is especially since we
speak here of some of the descents of the Hidden Alif in the
ocean of union (waṣl), and how it manifests in the river of
separation (faṣl), and of the circles of realization that
encompass Sainthood (wilāya), Prophethood (nubuwwa), and
Messengerhood (risāla), and of the different witnessing-sites
between the pulpits of transcendence and immanence, and of
the states of souls, and the determination of saintly
aspirations and states according to the dictates of the All-
Merciful’s permission, and other aspects of wayfaring and
gnosis that the wayfarers will encounter in their journey.
This book is an experiential meditation upon the life of
Sayyidunā Mūsā and Hārūn, peace be upon them, through the
first reading of the Hāʾ whose circumference encompasses all
hidden matters. This book, then, unveils some of the hidden
angles of the unseen Hāʾ-secrets in the presence of Mūsā and
Hārūn.
We ask God to accept this work of ours, and to benefit
servants and nations, and to make it a means of ascent
through the levels of servanthood, and to unlock the hearts
and intellects of everyone who encounters it and reflects
upon its contents.
1. The Presence of Divine Mercy (Ḥadrat
al-Raḥamūt)
Mudhākara from the Friday
Gathering of 4th Jumādā al-Thāniya 1435 / April 4th 2014

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm

Know, dear seeker of truth, that the presence of our master
Hārūn, peace be upon him, like the other presences, is one
part of the circle of the lordly presence whose ringstone is the
presence of our master the Messenger of God Muḥammad
ibn ʿAbdullāh ‫ﷺ‬. This presence is the presence of entering
unto the Singular Alif by means of the Hā-reading (al-qirāʾa
al-Hāʾiyya) of the singular Name of God (al-ism al-mufrad).
This presence, moreover, enables us to begin to experience
contact with the Hidden Alif (al-Alif al-muqaddar), the Alif of
the divine Name, because it is a presence that brings together
Messengerhood (risāla) and Prophethood (nubūwa), for our
master Mūsā is a messenger whereas our master Hārūn is a
prophet.
Now the Alif is composed of three vertically aligned dots,
for it is not possible to draw a straight line with anything
other than three dots. Two dots would not be enough to draw
the Alif straight, because it could become crooked, and then it
would no longer be an Alif at all. Thus it descends from the
presence of pre-eternity (azal) to the levels of letter-
qualification. These three dots are the dot of Messengerhood
(risāla), the dot of Prophethood (nubūwa), and the dot of
Sainthood (wilāya).
Know, moreover, that the Hārūn-Presence is full of gnostic
sciences and secrets, and replete with mysteries and lights. So
listen with your heart in order to follow, and in the hopes that
you may free yourself from the caprice of your evil-enjoining
soul, and advance toward the presence of proximity.
You should know, dear esteemed ones, that hearts
necessarily follow wealth (māl). That is why it is called māl,
for it causes its possessor to incline (yamīl). The Messenger
of God ‫ ﷺ‬said: “Verily, every community has its trial, and
the trial of my community is wealth.”5 Thus, when the people
of Mūsā collected their wealth after crossing the sea in order
to get rid of it by casting them into the fire, the Samaritan
transformed the gold into a calf that lowed. Whereupon they
worshiped it instead of God, because they had rid themselves
of their wealth outwardly while clinging to it inwardly. They
cast away their wealth with their hands, but their hearts
followed after it, and that is why they worshipped it when it
became a calf. Each of them sought his share of the calf. To
this effect, Jesus, peace be upon him, used to say: “Store your
treasures in heaven,” that is, store them through righteous
deeds so that God may lift them to Him. For when the hearts
chase after these treasures, they will find them to be stored
with a Powerful Owner (malīk muqtadir). Thereupon, they
will become attached to Him. That is, they will become
attached to the Everlasting, and will abandon the perishing.
For the soul is innately disposed to seek what is higher.
Know also that permission (idhn) is a ray of divine
approval that is reflected upon the mirror of destiny, whether
it comes from the Messengers, the Prophets ‫ﷺ‬, or their
heirs. To this effect, when the Samaritan took a handful of
dust from the footsteps of the messenger,6 namely Gabriel,7
he asked for permission from Sayyidunā Hārūn to cast what
he had in his hand. Hārūn, peace be upon him, thought that
the Samaritan had gold in his hand, just like the others, and
so he gave him permission.8 When the Samaritan cast it, he
intended for the gold to transform into a calf that has
movement and sound, and his intention came to fruition.
Now had he not taken permission (idhn) from the
Prophet ‫ﷺ‬, the gold would not have turned into a calf. For
permission from Prophets and their heirs carries the secret of
the formula “in the Name of God” (bismiLlāh), and that is
why things react to it. It is illuminated by the holy spirit that
revives whatever it flows through.
Similarly, knowledge can be a veil from God, for the
Samaritan learned knowledge that enabled him to see the
footsteps of the messenger and to know its value in that it
carries the characteristic of life. He also knew the importance
of receiving permission from Prophets. He had knowledge of
all of this and more, but he used his knowledge to lead people
astray from God’s Path. It is to this effect that God’s folk say
that knowledge is a veil if you halt at it and behold yourself
with an eye of self-admiration and pride vis-à-vis God’s
creatures, or if you employ it in other than God’s good
pleasure.
A human being cannot be subjugated to another human
being by virtue of the spirit that God blew into him. The
subjugation of slaves to men is none other than the
subjugation of the animality of man, not the humanity of
man, because a thing cannot be subjugated to its own kind.
Thus, the subjugation of humans to fellow humans is a result
of the disparity in their degree. For this reason you must
always look at humanity with an eye of elevation, and you
must subjugate your soul to the Prophet ‫ﷺ‬, because he has
more rank, elevation, and humanity than you. Thus,
Sayyidunā Hārūn was older than Sayyidunā Mūsā yet lower
in rank than him, and he used to follow his commands and
rule according to his degree.
Now with respect to the singular Name of God, the seeker
must journey from the Hāʾ of the Name back to the Alif,
bearing in mind their differing levels. Entering unto the
Singular Alif is achieved through the attributes of the saint
(walī), not through those of the believer (muʾmin). Attaching
to the elevation (rifʿa) of the Alif causes the knower of God
to taste the reality of servanthood. Likewise, journeying
towards the entrance unto the Alif with respect to the Hārūn-
presence is of two kinds: beholding the resplendent planet
(al-kawkab al-durrī) as message, and beholding the
resplendent planet as prophecy. This is the position of the
Alif. In a sense, your wayfaring is like a circumambulation
(ṭawāf) around the Alif. This Alif is not the Alif of the singular
Name of God exactly, but represents the descent of the
Primordial Alif (al-Alif al-aṣlī) into the two Lāms of the
divine name, so that you may read it by virtue of the Hāʾ. For
the Lām is like an Alif that is curved at the bottom. Moreover,
the Alif of the divine name descends into every one of the
ninety-nine Most Beautiful Names of God; it appears in the
rest of the names as a Hidden Alif, so that in this sense each
Name has an opening onto the Essence, and an opening onto
the Attributes.
You should thus be like a Lām, by virtue of the love and
annihilation (fanāʾ) in the intermediary (wāsiṭa), so that your
shank intertwines with its,9 and its Light, secrets and gnostic
teachings flow through you the way they flow through the
Lām.
 2. The Calf of Separation (ʿIjl al-faṣl)
Mudhākara from the Friday
Gathering of 11th Jumādā al-Thāniya 1435 / April 11th 2014

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm

Concerning the presence of entering upon the Singular Alif
by means of the Hā-reading, and with the attribute of union
and separation (al-faṣl waʾl-waṣl), majesty and beauty (al-
jamāl waʾl-jalāl), the Shaykh, may God be pleased with him,
said:
Know, may God assist you with His Spirit, that the realities
of divine mercy abide in the hearts of the servants of the All-
Merciful (ʿibād al-Raḥmān). These are described by God in
the verse: The servants of the All-Merciful are those who
walk humbly upon the earth, and when the ignorant
address them, say, “Peace,” and who pass the night
before their Lord, prostrating and standing [in prayer],
and who say, “Our Lord! Avert the punishment of Hell
from us! Truly its punishment is inescapable. What an
evil dwelling place and station!” and who, when they
spend, are neither prodigal nor miserly—and between
them is a just mean.10 Such realities are seen, heard, and
expressed through experiential taste and direct witnessing.
These realities, moreover, are for those who possess deep
insight and have gone beyond the husk and into the kernel of
the heart. Such are the people of divine mercy.
Dear disciples, you should know that no stone or tree is
worshiped except that it is venerated (taʿẓīm), so let God be
the object, source, and purpose of your veneration. For
Mūsā’s community did not worship the calf except on
account of the veneration that was cultivated in their hearts
for it. Their hearts were attached to the gold from which the
calf was created, and the source of that is the power of
caprice (hawā) whose properties flow through all existents.
Whenever a worshipper directs his attention toward an object
of worship, whether it be true or false, it is by virtue of the
overwhelming power of his caprice. The Messenger ‫ﷺ‬
says: “Wretched is the servant of the dinar, the dirham, and
the striped silk garment. When he receives something, he is
satisfied; but when he does not, he is unsatisfied.”11
Thus, when someone worships the calf or any other
manifestation-site of human caprice, it is through caprice that
he worships it. The greatest affliction that has ever befallen
God’s servants is the worship of caprice. The reality of
caprice, moreover, is whatever the soul loves passionately.
This is a hidden matter that pertains to one’s inner state, but
its outward form is worship. Note that God says: Hast thou
considered one who takes his caprice as his god, God
having led him astray knowingly?12 Note too the saying of
His beloved and chosen one ‫ﷺ‬: “There are three ways to
perdition: stinginess that is heeded, caprice that is followed,
and pride that arises from some fancied excellence in oneself.
And there are three ways to salvation: being just whether one
is content or angry, moderation in wealth and in poverty, and
fear of God inwardly and outwardly.”13
Acquiescing to one’s caprice instead of following
knowledge leads to distance from God, because it is a
deviation from the Path of the Messengers. As for those
whose caprice is in accord with the Messengers, they are as
ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, may God be pleased with him, said:
“When caprice is in conformity with truth, that is like honey
and butter.” Faith is not complete except for the one whose
caprice is from the caprice of the Messenger of God ‫ﷺ‬:
“None of you believes until your caprice is in accord with
what I have brought.”14
Therefore let God be your caprice, and let His Name be
your earth and your heaven, until He befriends you, and the
illusory forms come to naught before your eyes. For
otherwise, when the two angels in the grave address you and
say: “Who is your Lord?,” your tongue will express that
which your caprice was attached to in this life. And when
they ask you: “Who is your Prophet?,” your tongue will
express the attachments that your heart imbibed by way of
love of the herebelow, so beware!
When you see that a person is not upright with God, know
that there are idols within his heart. So do not let place
anyone apart from Him in your heart, and always follow the
Law of His Chosen One ‫ﷺ‬, and know that there are two
types of worshippers:
One type worships for the sake of the Garden and out of
fear of the Fire. If there were no Garden and no Fire, they
would not worship the All-Subjugating. They therefore seek
their interest, whose source is caprice, except that it is a
praiseworthy caprice that is permitted in the revealed Laws.
Another type worships God for the sake of God, without
yearning for the Garden or fleeing from the Fire. They
heeded the call of so flee unto God.15 These are the elite
among the truthful ones, and they placed their interest in
gazing at their Beloved, drawing near to Him, and taking
pleasure in intimate converse and knowledge of God.
Dear disciple, you should define your true nature by the
one you take as a companion. For a companion is either
among those whose very sight reminds you of God, or among
those whose very sight reminds you of Satan. So chose your
companions carefully. The blessed Messenger ‫ ﷺ‬says:
“The likeness of one who keeps good company and one
who keeps bad company is like that of the perfume-seller and
the blacksmith. The least you can expect from the perfume-
seller is that you will buy some from him, or you will smell
its pleasant fragrance. As for the blacksmith, he will burn
your body or your clothes, or you will smell a repugnant
smell from him.”16
Thus, the children of Israel worshiped the Calf because
they were companions of the Samaritan, who was the
manifestation-site of misguidance in their age. Every age has
a calf that is worshipped and a Samaritan who leads God’s
servants away from the Path of guidance. If their
companionship with Sayyidunā Mūsā had been sincere
outwardly and inwardly, they would have been among those
who were rightly guided, because he, peace be upon him, was
a manifestation-site of guidance. Similarly, whoever becomes
the companion of a Muḥammadan heir but is not sincere in
his companionship outwardly and inwardly, will perish. The
disciple's success is thus contingent upon combining both
inward and outward companionship. Know also that the
secret why Sayyidunā Mūsā’s community turned to
worshipping specifically the calf instead of God, or why
certain people worship certain manifestation-sites generally,
is the flow of the property of divine sustenance within them.
For possible existents fluctuate between two states: bestowal
of existence (ījād), and replenishment (imdād). Were it not
for His bestowal of existence, they would not manifest; and
were it not for His replenishment, they would not persist. So
understand!
With respect to reality, the possible existents are perishing,
as per the verse: All things are perishing, save His Face.17
This is why their turning to them in worship instead of God
was a consequence of blameworthy caprice, because worship
is only appropriate for God without partner. God says: The
Lord decrees that you worship none but Him, and be
virtuous to parents.18 For worship is the ultimate expression
of veneration, and it is only worthy of the One who possesses
the ultimate extent of reverence and the utmost limit of
blessing.
Dear disciple, beware of imagining that the Name has only
one level. If that were the case, then the wayfaring of
servants would come to an end when the Real unveiled that
level to them. However, wayfaring has no end. It begins with
passing away in the Hāʾ of Identity (Hāʾ al-huwiyya), then
advancing through the levels of the Name as far as God wills.
This is alluded to in the verse: The Raiser of degrees, the
Possessor of the Throne, He casts the Spirit from His
Command upon whomsoever He will among His servants
to warn of the Day of the Meeting.19 He does not speak of
one degree, but of multiple degrees, by virtue of the
multiplicity of the names within the single entity.
Beware of forgetting the levels within the union itself, lest
you violate their rights. For each level demands its right from
you, and you should therefore travel within them through the
Law of the Chosen One ‫ ﷺ‬so that you are not asked on the
Day of Judgment to give them their rightful due.
Whenever a seeker inclines to other-than-God, the eye of
his heart becomes blinded. Thus, those who worshiped the
calf were previously followers of Mūsā. However, when
other-than-God entered into their hearts, it blinded their inner
vision. In this way, when the eye of the heart becomes
blinded, its traces manifest themselves upon the disciple. You
find him disrespecting the gatherings of remembrance, and
not honoring the Name with which he entered into the retreat.
So be alert, may God have mercy on you.
If you do not honor the Name of Allāh, then what divine
knowledge can you claim to possess? The Shaykh assists you
with the Light and gnosis, and he does not ask you for money
or worldly things in return. Rather, the price that he places on
gnosis is etiquette. The price of what you see with your heart
is virtue. If your character becomes beautiful, and your traits
become refined, then you will retain gnosis and we will give
you more. But if you believe that you are a thing
remembered, then we will strip it from you.
Just as the Shaykh gives, he also deprives. Just as he plants,
he also uproots. Mūlay al-ʿArabī al-Darqāwī, may God be
pleased with him, used to express anger when someone
stretched out their feet during a gathering. What are we to
say, therefore, when someone speaks during the invocation?
Have shame before God, because a disciple may be an
obstacle on the Path even though he is unaware of it. The
masses do not look at the number of secrets on the Path you
have, nor how much Light you carry in your hearts. They do
not know any of that, nor do they understand what it means.
But they do observe your behavior and your character.
Conveying the message, therefore, is not limited to speech
alone. Rather, it is divided into various sorts. Some convey
with their tongue, others with their spiritual states, and still
others with their clarity of expression. Which type are you? If
you do not find yourself to be among any of them, then you
should fear for yourself lest you be one of those who repel
others from God with their tongue or their actions.
I have also taught you to close your eyes during the
invocation so that you are not distracted by existents from
your intended goal, and so that you may quickly transition
from the sensory realm to the supra-sensory realm. So do not
open your eyes during the invocation, may God have mercy
on you, until you arrive at a stage when the eye of the heart
becomes infused with the physical eye, such that opening and
closing your eyes are the same for you.
 3. The Lām of the Intermediary is the
Secret of Deliverance (lām al-wāsiṭa sirr
al-najāt)
Mudhākara from the Friday
Gathering of 18th Jumādā al-Thāniya 1435 / April 18th 2014

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm

Know, dear servants of God, that the divisions of the heart
differ as a result of the different incoming thoughts. Some
pertain to darkness, others are luminous. The Beloved ‫ﷺ‬
said: “Temptations will be presented to the heart in the same
manner as reed mats are plaited, strip by strip. The heart that
imbibes these [temptations] is marked by a black dot, while
the heart that rejects them is marked by white dot.
Accordingly, there are two types of hearts: one that is as
white as a white stone. It is unharmed by temptations for as
long as the heavens and the earth remain. The other is dark
and dust-colored, like a turbid vessel. It neither recognizes
the good, nor rejects the reprehensible. It is only consumed
by its passions.”20
The one who takes his knowledge and his state from the
Blessed Tree that is connected to the Messengers has a
luminous heart that receives its Light from the disclosures of
the names and attributes. Moreover, the Light shines upon his
bodily limbs. You observe that such a person does not
deviate from the verse: Say, “If you love God, follow me,
and God will love you and forgive you your sins. And God
is Forgiving, Merciful.”21 He is upon the Sunna of the
Beloved and constantly follows him. As for the one whose
knowledge and spiritual state is cut off from the Tree of
Guidance, he possesses a heart of darkness. The traces of
darkness manifest on his limbs, and he turns to other than
what the revealed Law commands.
This is why the heart manifests in this Hārūn-Presence in a
corporeal body, because of its inclination toward gold.
Moreover, since matter is darkness, it takes over the heart
and the limbs follow suit, and they prostrate to the calf. For
they took their knowledge and spiritual state from the
Samaritan, whose connection with the niche of Prophethood
was severed. Whoever is severed from the niche of
Prophethood becomes attached to a false idol (ṭāghūt)
without being aware of it. One report has reached us that
“whoever has no Shaykh, then Iblīs is his Shaykh.” Hence
you realize the importance of the Light that is taken from the
Blessed Tree, transmitted from Shaykh to Shaykh, back to
the wellspring of lights and secrets, Sayyidunā
Muḥammad ‫ﷺ‬. For he is a repudiation from the false idol:
God is the Friend of those who believe. He brings them
out of the darkness into the Light. As for those who
disbelieve, their friends are the false idols, bringing them
out of the Light into the darkness. They are the
inhabitants of the Fire, abiding therein.22
Be very cautious, dear wayfarers, because falsehood can
manifest itself in the garment of truth, and the one whose
inner vision is blind may go astray just as the Samaritan led
his people astray. Upon seeing a supernatural event
(khāriqa), they deemed it to be a miracle (muʿjiza). Satan one
day appeared to Sayyidunā ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī, may God
be pleased with him, in the attribute of Light, yet al-Jīlānī
recognized him and was saved from his misguidance because
he could recognize the difference between the Light that is
taken from the Niche and the light that is severed from it.
Thus, an authority in the revealed Law is necessary in order
to discern between stations and states. For the manifestation
of Light and supernatural events (khāriqa) at the hands of the
one who does not adhere to the revealed Law is not to be
taken into account. Rather, it only makes the servant more
distant from God. As for the Light that is received through a
continuous chain of transmission, it brings the servant nearer
to God, and it invites him to what is good, and to adherence
to the Sunna. Moreover, when the servant performs a deed
that is contrary to it, then it diminishes, or God may even
strip it from him.
The Light that you receive is from the quarry of
Prophethood. It teaches you knowledge of the names, and
unveils for you the secrets of the attributes, and carries you to
the Presence of the Essence, because God is the Light of the
heavens and the earth.23 So do not be deluded if non-
Muslims should behold a resemblance of the Light, and let it
not shake your creed, for it resembles the Light in form but it
differs from it in reality and in meaning. It is like the mirage
that resembles water from afar, but is contrary to it in reality.
For a mirage comes about through the reflection of Light in
the layers of the atmosphere during high temperatures.
Furthermore, every human being has a Light that is deposited
in his heart, regardless of his religious affiliation. That is the
Light of innate disposition (nūr al-fiṭra) upon which God
created mankind. The Messenger of God ‫ ﷺ‬said: “When
God created Adam, He touched his back, and every person
that He created among his offspring till the Day of
Resurrection fell out of his back. Then He placed a ray of
Light between the eyes of every person. Then He showed
them to Adam, who said: ‘Lord, who are these people?’ He
said: ‘They are your offspring.’ He saw one of them whose
ray between his eyes amazed him, so he said: ‘Lord, who is
this?’ He said: ‘This is a man from the latter nations of your
offspring called David.’ He said: ‘Lord, how long did You
make his lifespan?’ He said: ‘Sixty years.’ He said: ‘Lord,
add forty years from my life to his.’ Then at the end of
Adam’s life, when the angel of death came to him, Adam
said: ‘Do I not have forty years left?’ He replied: ‘Did you
not give them to your son David?’” The Messenger of God
said: “Adam denied, so his offspring denied; and Adam
forgot, so his offspring forgot; and Adam sinned, so his
offspring sinned.”24
Since hearts are affected in this manner by what enters into
them, there is a variation of the objects of worship in the
hearts of worshippers. As a result, disagreement arises among
them, and each accuses the other of misguidance. This is the
why the Real describes their state on the Day of Resurrection
as: Every time a community enters [the Fire], it curses its
sister.25 Its sister means its peer in following caprice and
idol-worship.
Know, dear esteemed ones, that if the wayfarer were to turn
away from the property of the Tree and to look with the eye
of union, then he would undoubtedly fall into a state of
bewilderment. For the property of annihilation would
overwhelm him, and all objects of worship thereupon would
pertain to the same genus. He would be like the one who is
within the heart of the Kaʿba and does not know where the
qibla is. Thus, the wayfarer must only pay regard to what was
revealed by the Messengers.
It is for this reason that in our Order, if your entrance into
the Hāʾ is not accompanied by a concentration upon the
center of the Ḥāʾ, then you will turn away from some names
and remain with others. You will then commit a heresy
(ilḥād) with respect to the names. However, if you
passionately focus on the center of the Hāʾ, then you will
have a share from each part of its circumference, because the
rays of union connect the center to each of the dots on the
circle’s circumference. As such, the correct manner of
entering into the all-encompassing presence is to reach and
come to naught in the Secret of the Secret, the center of the
Hāʾ.
This begins with the cultivation of reverence in the heart.
Do you not see that idols were only worshipped because
those who worshipped them saw them as manifestation-sites
of exaltedness? So be, for your part, among those who are
guided by the guidance of the Messengers, and you will see
that Truly exaltation belongs altogether to God; He is the
Hearing, the Knowing.26 The gnostic sees all creatures as
disclosures of the Real, but he does not worship these
disclosures which undergo constant change and
transformation, and are manifest one moment and gone the
next. Rather, it is God, the Self-Sufficient who is unlike
anything, that he worships. As for those who worship things
because they are disclosures of God, they undergo the same
properties that those things undergo, and so they see
themselves too as worthy of being worshipped. That is a
latent site of error, misguidance, and banishment from the
Path of God.
This being the case, the worshippers of idols believe that
they only worship them to bring them closer to God. To this
effect, God quotes them as saying: Those who take
protectors apart from Him [say], “We do not worship
them, save to bring us nigh in nearness unto God”.27 That
is, they placed the idols at the level of the two Lāms, but the
revealed Law does not approve of that. For things ought to be
placed at the level of the Hāʾ, not the two Lāms, because to
place them at the level of the two Lāms means to make them
connected, but they are not so.
For the two Lāms are the reality of the intermediary. The
revealed Law, for its part, affirms a single intermediary.
Thus, whoever does not acknowledge it and does not submit
to it, is cut off. For lā ilāha illā Allāh (no god but God) does
not suffice, and the intermediacy of Muḥammad rasūl Allāh
is necessary. The testimony of faith is not accepted except by
affirming both lā ilāha illā Allāh and Muḥammad rasūl
Allāh.
Moreover, the intermediacy of Shaykhs is from the
intermediacy of the Chosen One ‫ﷺ‬: “The knowers are the
heirs of the Prophets. The Prophets bequeath neither dinar
nor dirham; they bequeath only knowledge, and whoever
takes it takes an abundant portion.”28 Knowledge, moreover,
is knowledge of God, His attributes, names, and properties.
Dear loved ones, the Shaykhs of spiritual training (shuyūkh
al-tarbiya) are deputies of the Chosen One ‫ ﷺ‬in every age.
The Path of the two Lāms, moreover, is a straight line that is
made of three presences: the presence of the name Allāh, the
presence of the name the Friend (al-Walī), and the presence
of the name the Faithful (al-Muʾmin). The spiritual journey,
moreover, is a Path of ascension from the servant who has a
share in His name the Faithful, through his complete
immersion in the property of the servant who has attained
realization of His name the Friend (al-Walī), in order to attain
knowledge of God by unveiling the secrets of the all-
encompassing name Allāh. Its sign is to come out from
darkness to the Light. This is why God clarifies this
wayfaring through the levels of these names by saying: God
is the Friend of those who believe. He brings them out
from the darkness to the Light.29 In contrast, God says:
Surely God guides not disbelieving people.30 Thus, the
servant who is deceived by idolatry and unbelief will not
attain guidance, and so is distant from God. The most
important thing the believer can receive from the
intermediary is guidance; and since it is nonexistent for the
unbelievers, God negates guidance from them by saying that
He guides them not, and so they wander aimlessly in
misguidance.
This is where you recognize the importance of the
intermediary whose most perfect manifestation-site is
Sayyidunā Muḥammad ‫ﷺ‬, then his heirs. This is why it is
important for the wayfarer to possess high taste in order to
discern between manifestation-sites of misguidance that
assume the appearance of the forms of guidance, and
between the reality of guidance. As for the one who carries
the Secret, or the Secret of the Secret, or the Secret's Secret
of the Secret, and is inactive, and does not taste scripture and
supra-sensory meanings, he is frozen. Thus, taste is a gift
from God that benefits the spiritual aspirant if he carries the
Secret. The beginning of tasting is acquisition until it
becomes a station, then it becomes a bestowal from the Lord.
Consider this example to illustrate the difference between
the one who possesses taste in the spiritual Path and the one
who does not. Suppose you give two people some honey to
taste. To the first you give an entire kilogram of honey. He
eats it, and when you ask him about it, he tells you that he ate
honey and says no more. Then you give the same quantity to
the other, who eats a single spoonful of it. When you ask him
about it, he says that he ate honey, and tells you what kind,
and the tree that the bee drank from, and its benefits, and so
forth. The first has knowledge but does not have high taste,
and the second has knowledge as well as taste. This is the
case with gnosis.
Moreover, if the beginning of taste is attained by
acquisition, then it is necessary to exert effort. The wayfarer
is the one who combines taste and action. He tastes the
revealed Law’s devotions, its prayers and bowings, and he
tastes the Path with its renunciation, piety, and sincerity. You
will not taste these stations unless you strive for them with
true action.
 4. To Behold the Hāʾ, the Lām and the
Alif (Minẓār al-Hāʾ waʾl- Lām waʾl-Alif)
Mudhākara from the Friday
Gathering of 25th Jumādā al-Thāniya 1435 / April 25th 2014

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm

Know, dear servants of God, that the gazes of the gnostics
differ with respect to the heart. For each one of them divides
their time according to their state and station. There are those
who divide it with respect to beholding the days of the year,
and so they make it to be three-hundred and sixty-five parts.
There are also those who are dominated by a vision of the
hours of the day and the night, so they divide it into twenty-
four parts. There are also those who divide it into four parts,
in keeping with the seasons of the year. These divisions occur
by virtue of direct witnessing, not transmitted report. For
transmitted report may be sound, in which case the division is
sound; or it may be false, in which case the division is false.
What is meant by this consideration of the day, the hour,
and the season, are not these three elements in themselves.
For no matter how elevated these things of the physical realm
are, what they seek are the subtleties of the spiritual realm
(raqāʾiq malakūtiyya) that manifest in the hearts when the
realities of the Prophet’s saying: “Do not curse the Aeon,
because God is the Aeon”31 disclose themselves. For behind
these vessels lie pure meanings, and whoever halts at
perishing things is veiled from the Everlasting.
The wayfarer enters into his heart through the Hāʾ of
annihilation (Hāʾ al-fanāʾ), and retains this perishing
schematic division. Thus he attains the Alif-gaze of “God
was, and there was nothing beside Him,”32 which occurs
when he beholds the letters, and so he is not veiled by their
curvature from witnessing the subtle presence of the Alif
within them. Thus, those who grasp this meaning proclaim
that “He is now as He was then.”
This flowing manifests itself to the one who becomes
absent from his body and from other-than-God. However, if
you find that a murid is still preoccupied with his external
appearances after coming out of the retreat (khalwa), then
that is due to his frozenness and foolishness. The reason for
his frozenness is that the heart is absent from the religious
intermediary which is replaced by a worldly intermediary,
and thus he becomes veiled.
Dear loved ones, the heart necessarily inclines toward
whatever dominates it. This is why a tradition has reached us
that Jesus said: “Store your treasures in heaven.”33 Moreover,
we have previously seen why the children of Israel were
afflicted with the worship of wealth in the form of the calf,
because their hearts were attached to it, and so they became
lowly. Jesus’ counsel is therefore an instruction in order to
rectify your intermediary Lām, because investing your wealth
in charity and entrusting it to the angels while aspiring for the
Garden elevates your saintly aspiration at the very least.
Higher still are those who dedicate their charity to God,
without asking for a compensation other than the approval
and proximity of their Lord. To this effect, it is related that
Sayyida ʿĀʾisha and Sayyida Fāṭima said that “A dirham
given in charity reaches the Hand of God before it reaches
the hand of the poor person.” Thus they used to perfume it
before placing it in the hand of the poor. There is therefore a
difference between the one who devotes his deeds for the
sake of God's Face, and the one who devotes his deeds for
the sake of the Garden. So understand!
Beholding the intermediary Lām as being an Alif is the very
essence of beholding. Such a lordly servant who is singled
out by God’s words on the tongue of the Prophet ‫ﷺ‬:
“Whosoever aggresses against a friend of Mine, I declare war
upon him. My servant cannot draw nearer to Me with
anything more beloved to Me than what I have made
obligatory upon him. And My servant does not cease drawing
near to me through supererogatory devotions until I love him.
And when I love him, I become his hearing with which he
hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he
grasps, and his foot with which he walks. If he asks Me, I
will surely give him; and if he seeks refuge in Me, I will
surely grant it to him.”34
Beware of halting with the human substance. For the one
who halts with the nature of mortal man is deprived of the
secret of divine election. It is for this reason that people
beheld the supreme intermediary, Sayyidunā
Muḥammad ‫ﷺ‬, in different manners. It is for him that God
revealed the verse: A Messenger has indeed come unto you
from yourselves.35 Thus, it is in accordance with their self-
status that they beheld the intermediary, because he is the
universal and all-encompassing mirror for every form. As
such, the one whose soul commands unto evil (ammāra), or
is lamenting (lawwāma), is dominated by a bodily gaze;
whereas the one whose soul is at peace (muṭmaʾinna) is
dominated by a spiritual gaze; while the one whose soul is
perfected witnesses the Muḥammadan perfection, and so
combines the bodily and spiritual gazes.
Those who have a bodily gaze remain with corporeal
things, and when they speak from their station their words are
delimited because they are perishing. As for the spiritual
person, his speech is elevated. The angels do not behold it
and write it down, nor do the satans corrupt it. For it is from
the quarry of the secret of sincerity. Thus, the knower of God
sees all things as a Hāʾ, then he ascends and sees all things as
a Lām, then he ascends and sees all things as an Alif. The one
who beholds his own heart from the presence of the Alif’s
touch will find that it curves toward the Lām.
The Alif is a line that you can extend for as long as you
please. That is why it manifests in all the letters, just as the
number one manifests in all numbers. The one who gains
proximity to the Alif observes all letters as Alif, but then
when he looks again he reads them as Lām, and then the third
time he reads them as Hāʾ. This is specific to the people of
direct witnessing (ahl al-mushāhada). For example, if the
letter Ḥāʾ appears to you and you observe it carefully until
you trace it back to the treasury of the Alif,36 and you remain
with it by virtue of love (ḥubb),37 then afterwards it will seem
to you that it has become a Lām, and your yearning for it will
increase, because the numerical value of Lām is seventy,
according to the number of veils between the Real and
creation. Then you will pierce through them, and you will
look at the same letter as being annihilation (fanāʾ) with no
existence, and at yourself the same way, and you will look at
it in the Hāʾ of the name. And through this wayfaring you
will read ‘Ilāh’ (Alif Lām Hāʾ). In this manner, when the
flowing of the Alif in the Ḥāʾ manifests to you, you will
know its three levels of jabarūt, malakūt and mulk.
 No one tastes the sweetness of the intermediary (wāsiṭa), or
knows the Lām, except the one who becomes ‘for God’
(liʾLlāh)38 by withdrawing from all things other than God,
becoming oblivious to the lower self, and arriving at the soul
at peace (al-nafs al-muṭmaʾinna). At that time, by virtue of
the rectitude (istiqāma) of the spirit, upon gazing at the Lām
one sees it as an Alif because of the purity of one’s gaze, and
by virtue of being oblivious to the non-existent forms. As for
the one who remains with the forms, he will remain veiled.
Now, when one becomes liʾLlāh, one begins to understand
why God’s folk call it the Ḥāʾ of Thronehood (al-Ḥāʾ al-
ʿarshiyya). One begins to understand why it has the value
eight in the science of numerology (ḥisāb al-jummal). One
understands why God swears by it in His Holy Book seven
times, adding to it the Muḥammadan Mīm: Ḥāʾ Mīm. All of
this you realize through direct witnessing; and this discourse
is addressed to those who are qualified to hear it. It is in this
way that you engage with all the letters: you look at them as a
Hāʾ, then as a Lām, then as an Alif, and then you discover
their reality.
Now in the Hārūn-presence, we learn to look at the Alif.
For it is this presence that puts us into contact with the Alif,
which is composed of three levels: the level of
Messengerhood (risāla) at the top, the level of Sainthood
(wilāya) in the middle, and the level of Prophethood
(nubūwa) at the bottom.
Sayyidunā Mūsā, peace be upon him, is the Messenger of
God (rasūl Allāh) to the Israelites, representing the upper dot
of the Alif. Our master Hārūn is the Prophet of God and the
representative (khalīfa) of our master Mūsā to his people,
representing the lower dot. There is much proof that our
master Hārūn was a prophet and not a messenger, including
the verse from Sūra Maryam, And We granted him from
our mercy his brother Hārūn as a Prophet.39 And from the
Sunna: when the holy Prophet Muḥammad ‫ ﷺ‬went out to
the battle of Tabūk and left ʿAlī behind as his khalīfa over the
women and the children, ʿAlī, God be pleased with him, told
him, “Would you leave me behind with the women and
children?” The Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬replied, “Are you not content to
have the station with me that Hārūn had with Mūsā, except
that there shall be no prophet after me?”40 The qualification
he made here indicates that our master Hārūn was a prophet.
Now, the scholars say that every messenger (rasūl) is a
prophet (nabī), but not every prophet is a messenger.
Moreover, every prophet and messenger is a saint (walī).
That is why every messenger brings together the reality of
the Alif with all three levels. As for the prophet, only two
levels manifest in him: the levels of Sainthood and
Prophethood.
It is for this reason that when Sayyidunā Mūsā went for the
appointed time with his Lord as the Qurʾān says, And Mūsā
arrived at Our appointed time, and his Lord spoke to
him,41 and he left behind with his people Sayyidunā Hārūn, it
was as if only half of the Alif remained with them. Hārūn’s
influence over his people was weak, and so they inclined
towards gold and the worship of the calf, because they had
lost that upper half of the Alif of Messengerhood, namely our
master Mūsā. Then they lost the prophetic half of the Alif
when they refused to listen to Hārūn when he forbade them
from worshipping the golden calf. Thus their hearts drank
from the passions of the love of the lower world (dunyā).

But when Mūsā returned and reconnected the upper part of

the Alif with the lower part, he took hold of the beard of his
brother, as the verse says, How evil is the course you have
followed after me! Would you hasten the command of
your Lord? And he cast down the tablets and seized his
brother by the head, dragging him toward himself.42 All
of this was symbolic, not literal. And then by God’s leave, he
scattered the ashes of the calf in the sea and showed them the
way of guidance, and said, Your god is only Allah, except
for whom there is no god. He encompasses all things in
knowledge.43 Thus, wherever the Alif manifests and dwells,
there manifests guidance and rectitude. This is why the
Messenger of God, in the Sīra, drew a line in front of him in
the sand and said, “This is God's way.”44 The line he drew
was toward the very essence of the human being, and towards
nothing else; so understand that.
Thus, the return through these letters to the treasury of the
Alif brings you to the level of servanthood and realization of
servanthood, to constant humility before the exaltation of the
Lord; because when one returns to the treasury of the Alif,
what manifests then is the innermost secret of the words
‘through Me’ (bī)45 in the tradition, ‘through Me they came to
know Me’ (fa-bī ʿarafūnī).46 The numerical value of Bāʾ is
two, and Yāʾ is ten, so the total is twelve, which is the
number of letters in lā ilāha illā Allāh. And lā ilāha illā Allāh
brings together affirmation and negation (al-nafy waʾl-ithbāt)
or you might say, annihilation (fanāʾ) and subsistence
(baqāʾ).
So the line of the straight Alif is the line of journeying
through the levels and ascents of lā ilāha illā Allāh,
Muḥammad rasūl Allāh, through the inclining of the heart
toward it, and its attachment to it, until it achieves realization
of it. This is why it is important for you to closely observe
the inclinations of your heart: towards whom, and where, and
what does it desire? The way to recognize the inclination of
your heart is very easy: all you have to do is sit in a room by
yourself in the last third of the night, and to place a mirror in
front of you, and to talk to it with all sincerity about your
deeds, your aspirations and desires, and ask it, “Do you want
God, or do you want other than God?” This is the meaning of
“asking the heart’s opinion,” about which the Prophet ‫ﷺ‬
said, “Ask your heart’s opinion” (istafti qalbak).47 For when
the heart inclines toward something, it abases itself to it and
is submissive to it. If you want to know your worth with God,
you must simply discover God’s worth in your heart. You
will then know the reason why the unbelievers worshipped
idols instead of God, because their hearts inclined to them
with love and submissiveness, and they believed in their
excellence and superiority. This is why their hearts were
unreceptive of the Lights of guidance, as God describes
them: verily, God does not guide the unbelieving people,48
because guidance does not dwell in the heart until other-than-
God abates and becomes erased from it. It is in the measure
of the heart’s emptiness from other-than-God that guidance
dwells in it and becomes settled in it.
Thus, the unbelievers worship existents, though they know
that what they worship neither benefits nor harms them. That
is why if you ask them to name their gods, they will tell you
that this is a rock, a cow, a tree, or something of that sort.
After all, they are aware of what they are worshipping, and
that is why they wander aimlessly in the ocean of
misguidance. Yet they ascribe partners unto God. Say, name
them!,49 and so they ascribed names of existent things to
them. This is why God recounts that [after smashing the
idols] Sayyidunā Ibrāhīm said [to his people]: So question
them [the idols], if they speak!50 to which his people
responded: Certainly you know that these speak not!51 He
thereby defeated them and invalidated their falsehood, and it
became clear that they were well aware of what they
worshipped. This is why God did not guide them. After all,
they had an intellect with which to discern, but they
nonetheless followed caprice and inclined toward lowliness.
So beware of your whims and passions and ensure that your
hearts are attached to the two Lāms: the Lām of Gnosis (lām
al-maʿrifa) which is the first Lām of the divine name, and the
Lām of Constriction (lām al-qabḍ) which is the second Lām
of the divine name. For it is in the measure of your
inclination towards the intermediary (wāsiṭa), and in the
measure of your love and veneration of it, that you pierce
through the seventy veils which stand between you and the
Real, in order to arrive at knowledge of God.
Know also that what prevents you from honoring the
intermediary (wāsiṭa) are your lower selves, which incline
toward leadership and prestige, or imagine themselves to
have knowledge, gnosis and proximity to God. Your halting
with those imaginations, without referring back to their root
and witnessing God’s gratuitous kindness upon you, is what
prevents you from venerating the intermediary. Be aware,
then, that whenever something weighs heavily on your soul,
it points directly to a deficiency within you.
Drive your lower selves toward the Lām, and all other
things will come to you; knowledge of the soul is the root of
knowledge. “Whoever knows their soul, knows their Lord.”
If you want training (tarbiya), then first go against yourself,
then strive against it until it becomes at peace, then
accompany it to the Presence of God. The people of God
have established foundational principles that will help you
find the treasure that is buried within you. They established
the wearing of the patched cloak, of begging in the markets,
and of hanging the rosary around the neck, so that you have
no interest in what anyone thinks of you, but only what God
thinks of you.
Practicing these foundational principles frees you from the
shackles of your lower self so that you gain non-qualification
and non-delimitation (iṭlāq). If someone is unable to wear the
patched cloak or place a rosary around his neck, how can he
wander in the wilderness, or walk barefoot in the markets
calling out to his Lord? How can he sleep among graves, and
so experience the slumber of the grave before he dies? So
prepare for that night which has no Light, and no one to give
you comfort, and adorn your days with beautiful and
righteous deeds so that it manifests itself to you in the form
of a human being of pleasant appearance in the grave, to give
you comfort and make you forget what you left behind in the
herebelow.
When you strive against your lower self, the reality of this
world becomes evident to you, you know that it is non-
existent, that it has no existence except through God. Then
God provides you with Light, and through that Light you
come to know how close He is to you. When you behold this
Light, you are beholding it through the eye of your inner
vision; you are beholding the Real. You are not beholding
God, but you are beholding the likeness of His exalted
attributes (mathal ṣifatih). As for God Himself, Visions do
not perceive Him (lā tudrikuhu al-abṣār).52 And when you
describe this Light, you are describing the Glass Container
(zujāja) in which that Light manifests. As for the Light itself,
it has no color and you have no ability to describe it.
The spirit is subtle, and it sees subtle things that flow. As
for the body, it is constrained and sees nothing but density.
That is why in visions (mushāhada) you see your spirit in the
form of your body. You behold the gardens and the fires with
the eye of your heart. You behold mathal nūrihi, the likeness
of His Light, and recognize His nearness. As for He Himself
(Huwa), the incapacity to perceive Him is a perception. If
you are incapable of describing the Alif, what about the One
who brought the Alif into existence?
Lights and disclosures benefit the servant whose intellect is
not constrained, and that is why they can become a veil if one
halts with them. As for the one who tastes the secret of the
Light and pierces through the walls, there is no veil on him.
 5. The Appearance of the Hidden Alif:
The Birth of Sayyidunā Mūsā
Mudhākara from the Friday
Gathering of 2nd Rajab 1435 / May 2nd 2014

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm

Dear servants of God, the Mūsā-Presence comes after the
Hārūn-Presence because Sayyidunā Hārūn, peace be upon
him, preceded Sayyidunā Mūsā in physical manifestation.
That is, he was born before his brother in the year in which
infants were spared, and that is why we begin with his
presence before the presence of Sayyidunā Mūsā. Our
Beloved Prophet Muḥammad ‫ ﷺ‬said, “The eldest brother
is like a father.”53
Thus, Sayyidunā Hārūn is the first in physical and bodily
terms. However, the status of Sayyidunā Mūsā is higher and
greater because his Prophethood is greater than the
Prophethood of Sayyidunā Hārūn. That is why the Mūsā-
Presence comes directly after the Hārūn-Presence. Moreover,
we are learning to read the contact with the Alif, which
particularly suits the Mūsā-Presence because it is the
presence of the manifestation of the Hidden Alif in a
complete manner, to the extent that Sayyidunā Mūsā carried
it as a staff in the sensory realm.
Dear seekers of the most holy presence, you should know
that the determination of the Alif begins from the presence of
the name the All-Merciful (al-Raḥmān), then descends into
the rest of the divine names. As for the Original Alif, no one
has the ability to speak of it. That is why we say that that
staff of Mūsā is the Hidden Alif in the name al-Raḥmān
(‫)اﻟﺮﺣﻤﻦ‬. God says: And We bestowed upon him, from Our
mercy, his brother, Hārūn, a prophet.54 He was thus a
Hidden Alif for the letters of Mūsā, and that is why this
presence is characterized by exaltedness and elevation, and
was marked by a tremendous beginning. According to Ibn
ʿAbbās, as well as Murra b. Masʿūd, God be pleased with
him:
“The Pharaoh dreamt that a fire came from Jerusalem and
burnt the houses of Egypt and the Copts, but did not harm the
Isrealites. After having this dream, Pharaoh woke up
terrified, and sent for all the soothsayers, wise men, and
sorcerers and asked them about it. They said ‘A child will be
born among them, and at his hands the people of Egypt will
be destroyed, and your kingdom overthrown. The time of his
birth is nigh. That is why Pharaoh the tyrant—may God curse
him—ordered all newborns killed and their mothers spared.
He used to kill male infants one year, and spare them the
next. Sayyidunā Hārūn, peace be upon him, was born the
year they were spared, while Sayyidunā Mūsā was born the
year they were killed. The sorcerers had determined the year
of the prophecised child's birth, and in the year of Mūsā's
birth they killed a thousand newborns.”
This entire chain of events occurred for the sake of the
appearance of the Alif of Mūsā. The annihilated silent vowel
(sukūn al-fanāʾ) of Alf, “one thousand,” became the short
vowel “i” of Alif, in order for the rectitude of the Alif to
manifest. Moreover, the short vowel “i” which is written
under the letter is an abasement, and abasement is from the
presence of majesty, and that is why the short vowel
manifested in the form of killing.
The notion of killing newborns that Pharaoh and the
soothsayers came up with was none other than an expression
of the darkness of their souls. The thoughts that are produced
by the darkness of the lower self must be assessed against the
Book and the Sunna, so that the one who has them may avoid
error and its consequences. As for the thoughts that are
derived from a luminous heart upon the carpet of direct
witnessing, they are protected from selfish interests and
satanic insinuations. After all, the lower self and Satan are
darkness, while the Light disperses this darkness and burns it
up. Our Beloved Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬said:
“God sets forth a parable of a straight Path, on the sides of
which are walls, with open doors, and with curtains
suspended over them. At the end of the Path there is a caller
who says: ‘O mankind, enter upon the Path together, and do
not deviate from it.’ There is another caller at the other end of
the Path who calls out whenever someone tries to open one of
those doors: ‘Woe to you! Do not open it, for if you open it
you will go through it.’ The Path is Islam, the two walls are
the limits that God has set down, the open doors are the
things that God has forbidden, the caller at the top of the Path
is God’s Book, and the one at the other end of the Path is the
divine admonisher within the heart of every Muslim.”55
This being the case, a thought that derives from Light or
from the people of Light never falls outside the Law, while
the thoughts that emerged from Pharaoh were dark because
he took his replenishment from darkness. Still, the matter is
not devoid of the wisdom and determination of the All-
Aware, the All-Wise. For if God had not seized the souls of
those children then the other spirits would have vied with the
spirit of Mūsā. They would have competed in God’s affair,
and laid claim to what Mūsā claimed. Indeed, the chroniclers
tell us that this is just what happened, and that before Mūsā’s
birth fifty individuals among the children of Israel claimed to
be the promised child and to be prophets.
The children who were killed all died in a pure primordial
state, and were not defiled by selfish interests and lowly
appetites. God says: The primordial nature from God
upon which He originated mankind.56 In the pristine
Sunna, it is related that the Messenger of God ‫ ﷺ‬said:
“Every child is born in a primordial state, and it is their
parents who raise them to be Jews, Christians, or
Zoroastrians.”57
Every child is born in a primordial state of proximity to the
covenant of its Lord, still having realization of the secrets of
the Day of Alastu, when mankind proclaimed: “Indeed, You
are our Lord” (balā). However, as the child grows up it
becomes affected by its surroundings and the people who are
closest to it. It becomes like them, and from them learns
heedlessness and distance. Therefore, even if you are born
into a Muslim family and raised in Islam, it behooves you to
verify your Islam and to attain conviction of what your
family passed onto you by custom. Ask yourself: are you
upon the way of the Chosen One ‫ ?ﷺ‬Search for your true
self. Learn to lower yourself and to perform the night vigil.
Search for the realities of faith, and if you do not find
mystical ecstasy, then generate its initial stirs (in lam tajid fa-
tawājad). Feign the craft of spirituality until you become a
craftsman.
Esteemed disciples, the Pharaoh’s killing of the children in
their primordial state—pure spirit—was to strengthen the
spirit of the Confidant, to elevate his status, and to exalt him.
How many spirits were ransomed for the spirit of the
Confidant? For they killed those children on the basis that
they were Mūsā. It is as though they were killing the lower
levels in order for the spirit to manifest in its higher levels.
They were killing the forms for the sake of the spirit. They
were driving the letters, as it were, back to the true Alif that
would disclose itself at that time without their awareness.
That is why Mūsā, peace be upon him, was strong in body,
strong in spirit, and strong in saintly aspiration. God thus
chose him to face Pharaoh, who was violent, tyrannical, and
obstinate.
 6. The Alif and the Splitting of the Sea
(al-Alif wa-shaqq al-baḥr)
Mudhākara from the Friday
Gathering of 9th Rajab 1435 / May 9th 2014

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm

We have previously mentioned that the Hārūn-presence and
the beginning of the Mūsā-presence represent the completion
of contact with the Alif, because they bring together
Messengerhood, Prophethood, and Sainthood. We know,
moreover, that the prophet’s sainthood is vaster than his own
prophethood. Both the Messenger and the Prophet have a
greater and grander station of Sainthood than of
Messengerhood and Prophethood, because the properties of
Messengerhood and Prophethood come to an end when this
world comes to an end. After all, rulings are tied to religious
accountability. Consider how a child is not religiously
accountable, and therefore the ritual rulings of the Law do
not apply to him. As for Sainthood, its property flows in this
world and the next. All of this applies to the prophet and
messenger in particular. As for saints who are not prophets or
messengers, their Sainthood is lesser, for there is no
comparison between a messenger-saint and a saint.
Know, dear servants of God, that the staff of Mūsā is the
disclosure-site of the Hidden Alif in respect of the name the
All-Merciful (al-Raḥmān). This is why is has been reported
that al-Muṣṭafā ‫ ﷺ‬said: “If Mūsā were alive among you,
he would have no choice but to follow me.”58 For Mūsā was a
Hidden Alif, and when the Primordial Alif manifests,
everything else must become nonmanifest, according to the
principle of subordination and the return of the branch to the
root.
This manifestation of Mūsā occurred through the collective
force of all the souls that were sacrificed for him. Mūsā was
thus the rest of the letters, and his staff was the Hidden Alif
because of the plurality of letters and names that were slain
for his sake. Thus he comprised all the letters, spirits, and
numbers; and the letters, as it were, returned to their root.
This is why he would strike the other letters with his Alif-
staff, including the rocks and the sea, so that they no longer
possessed existence, and he absorbed whatever he wished
from them back into the Alif, and discarded whatever he
wished. So it was that God’s wisdom, will, and power were
made manifest in things.
Observe, may God have mercy on you, how he struck the
middle of the ocean in order for it to split and the dry land to
appear. He struck the middle-letter of the word b-ḥ-r, sea,
thus absorbing the ḥāʾ back to the Alif, and causing it to
disappear from that word, and so it became b-r, dry land.
God’s power and wisdom thus became manifest. Then We
revealed unto Moses, “Strike the sea with thy staff!” and
it parted, and each part was as a great mountain.59
The secret of the control that he exercised over things goes
back to the fact that God’s Confidant, peace be upon him,
brought together the letters of the slain children within
himself. They were in a pure primordial state, endowed with
a power of spirit. Through them, the hadith of the saint was
realized. As the beloved ‫ ﷺ‬related on behalf of his Lord:
“Whosoever aggresses against a friend of Mine, I declare
war upon him. My servant cannot draw nearer to Me with
anything more beloved to Me than what I have made
obligatory upon him. And My servant does not cease drawing
near to me through supererogatory devotions until I love him.
And when I love him, I become his hearing with which he
hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he
grasps, and his foot with which he walks. If he asks Me, I
will surely give him; and if he seeks refuge in Me, I will
surely grant it to him.”60
It was due to their proximity to the Real that they attained
this existential realization. All of that was inherited by Mūsā,
such that all those powers were brought together in him. The
power of seeing is the essence of seeing, and the power of
hearing is the essence of hearing, and the power to grasp is
the essence of the hand, and so on. Thus, he exercised control
over others because he brought together what was dispersed
in others. Moreover, since children have this special property,
you may observe how they exercise control and influence
over those who surpass them in age, status, and knowledge.
You thus find an elderly man pandering to a small child,
playing with him in order to bring joy to him. All of this is
the child's subjugation of the adult unconsciously.
This is what happened to Pharaoh with Sayyidunā Mūsā,
and that is all on account of the powerful station of the child
because of his closeness to God, to say nothing of Sayyidunā
Mūsā, whom God appointed as one of the messengers of
resolution (ūlū al-ʿazm), and for whom God revealed the
verse: And I cast upon thee a love from Me, that thou
mightest be formed under My eye.61
Thus, the one who is closest to God is given power over the
one who is furthest from God. The closer you are to al-
Muṣṭafā ‫ ﷺ‬in spirit and body, the closer you are to God.
Nothing, moreover, is closer to the covenant of its Lord than
the Light of the Prophet ‫ﷺ‬. Thus a traditional report tells
us that God said: “I took a handful of My Light and said: be
Muḥammad.” So seek access to him with your hearts, may
God have mercy on you, so that there may be proximity and
love between you and the Real. Honor the Light more and
more until its covering is removed for you. The one who is
replenished from the Light of al-Muṣṭafā ‫ ﷺ‬receives
replenishment that is newly arrived from the covenant of its
Lord. The Beloved ‫ ﷺ‬teaches us to seek access to
whatever is close to God and newly arrived from its Lord, for
he says: “Verily, there are spiritual breezes (nafaḥāt) that
your Lord has placed throughout the days of your lives. So
expose yourselves to them in the hopes of one of them
reaching you, that you may never be miserable thereafter.”62
Thus he ‫ ﷺ‬used to expose his body to the rain. It is related
that Anas said: “Rain fell upon us while we were with God's
Messenger ‫ﷺ‬. He opened his garment till some of the rain
fell upon him. We said: ‘O Messenger of God, why did you
do that?’ He replied, ‘It is newly arrived from its Lord.’”63
When these bestowals of true knowledge appear from the
world of the divine command in the manifestation-sites of
creation, they emerge bearing the robe of divine proximity.
Whoever welcomes them will be increased in knowledge,
understanding, and wisdom concerning the disclosures of the
Real.
Moreover, it is in this sense the Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬used to
behold milk as being knowledge, and that is why he used to
interact with it in a special manner. He ‫ ﷺ‬said: “Whoever
is given by God food should say: ‘Dear God, bless us through
it and provide us with better than it.’ And whomever God has
given milk to drink should say: ‘Dear God, bless us through
it and give us more of it.’”64 For milk too is newly arrived
from its Lord. Observe how God makes this manifest to us
when He says: And surely in the cattle there is a lesson for
you: We give you to drink from that which is in their
bellies, between refuse and blood, as pure milk, palatable
to those who drink.65 He exposed himself, as it were, to
God’s replenishment through milk because of its color. For it
is like a birth, and an increase of colors, even though white
itself is not a color, but rather it is through it that the other
colors manifest. As for water, it has no color. Moreover,
he ‫ ﷺ‬used to expose the crown of his head to the sky in
order to welcome the replenishment that it brings down with
it. To this effect, God says: We sent down from the sky
blessed water.66 For he ‫ ﷺ‬is a perfect spirit, or rather he is
the spirit of existence. He had such intimate knowledge of his
Lord that he would welcome the Real's disclosures and
replenishment in whatever He manifested and made apparent.
With respect to the Alif, he ‫ ﷺ‬received his replenishment
from the Dot-Treasure (nuqṭat al-kanziyya). That is why the
closer the letters are to the Alif, the stronger it flows through
them. So understand!
This is why you must protect the purity of the innate
disposition in your children, so that they may remain in the
state of wholesomeness upon which they were created. Do
not corrupt it by creating distance between them and the
teachings and rulings of religion. You should preserve the
state in which they were created with three things:
First, choose a righteous mother for them. For as the
Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬says: “Choose a pious woman, may God bless
you!”67 Likewise, the wife’s family should select a man of
piety and virtue, for the Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬says: “When someone
comes to you with piety and virtue that you approve of,
marry him off. If you do not, there will be tribulations on
earth and great corruption.”68 For men of piety and virtue
anchor in their children the innate disposition upon which
they were born.
Second, choose the most beautiful names for them. The
Messenger of God ‫ ﷺ‬said: “On the Day of Resurrection
you shall be called by your names and the names of your
children, so choose beautiful names.”69 When a name has a
beautiful meaning, it gives the child confidence and inspires
in him positive feelings in front of his peers.
Third, teach them some Qurʾān, for Jābir b. Zayd said: “It
has reached me that the Messenger of God ‫ ﷺ‬said, ‘Teach
your children the Qurʾān, for it is the first of God's
knowledge that should be learned.’”70
These three general rules will, God willing, preserve the
subtle divine grace that flows through each child. For the
closer a person is to the innate human disposition, the more
eager he is to authenticate the reality of his religious practice
at the three levels of submission (islām), faith (īmān), and
spiritual excellence (iḥsān). The tree of innate disposition,
moreover, is nourished by the water of revelation, the Book
and the Sunnah, and extraneous thorns are kept from it with
the fire of purification.
This week we have brought down a vision of the Alif into
the heart of one of the fuqarāʾ, whereby the human being is
divided into two parts. In this vision, the faqīr ʿAbd al-Qādir
witnessed the disclosure of an Alif turning around a circle—
that is, the Alif rules over the circle—and the luminous circle
appears, as it were, in the center of the circle as illustrated in
the following diagram:

“I saw as if there was a fire in the lower part of the circle

that burnt my lower half, while the upper part was extremely
cold. Then I called out to the Shaykh’s presence for help and
he saved me, for I was inside the circle, and the Seal has the
right to come out of the Hāʾ of Identity and return to it. For
entering only occurs through the door of sanctity, because it
possesses the isthmus-quality.” End of the faqīr’s words.
This is why a staff is held at the middle, so that you are not
burnt by Prophethood or Messengerhood. Entering into the
Alif through the isthmus of Sainthood grants you balance and
equilibrium with respect to the exoteric and esoteric, the
outward and the inward.
With regard to spiritual advancement, wayfaring does not
begin from the Alif. Rather, it begins from the Hāʾ of Identity
which the servant enters into with lowliness, self-abasement,
worship, and love until he reaches the Dot-Treasure. Even if
the disciple just remains patiently in the Hāʾ of Identity,
ninety-nine Hidden Alifs will become unveiled for him, and
the diversity of the Hidden Alifs will appear to him from one
name to another in their shape and energy. Abundant
knowledge and gnostic sciences of the divine names will
appear to him.
 7. Knowledge of Opposites (ʿilm al-
aḍdād)
Mudhākara from the Friday
Gathering of 16th Rajab 1435 / May 16th 2014

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm

The Mūsā-presence is the presence of entering into contact
with the Alif inasmuch as it is the disclosure-site of the
Hidden Alif that exerts influence over the other letters
through its descent and assumption of shapes in order to
extinguish otherness. Therefore, this presence brings together
the disclosures of opposites. Mūsā’s mother fears that her son
will perish and is commanded to cast him into the perilous
ocean; Pharaoh goes on a killing spree and raises the very
boy who would be the cause of his demise inside his palace;
Mūsā seeks the fire and through it the All-Compelling
addresses him, and the fire becomes Light, and so on.
Know, dear wayfarer, that the knowledge of opposites leads
you to knowledge of the names, and knowledge of the names
drives you to the earth of realization of the Adamic
vicegerency: I am placing upon the earth a vicegerent71
upon the disclosure-carpet of He taught Adam the names.72
God be glorified and exalted: He is the All-Merciful (al-
Raḥmān) and the All-Subjugating (al-Qahhār); the Benefiter
(al-Nāfiʿ) and the Harmer (al-Ḍārr); the Withholder (al-
Māniʿ) and the Bestower (al-Muʿṭī); the Constrictor (al-
Qābiḍ) and the Expander (al-Bāsiṭ); and so on. This is why
the knowledge of opposites is among the noblest sciences of
Sainthood, and the saints surpass each other according to
their degree knowledge of this science; and that is why the
one who brings them together is the Imām of his age and the
Adam of his time. The saints used to praise the one who
realized this science. To this effect, Shaykh Sīdī ʿAbd al-
Wāḥid al-Dabbāgh used to say: “Sīdī ʿAlī [al-Jamal] was a
prominent jurist, and a renowned knower of the science of
opposites,” by which he meant the esoteric truth (ḥaqīqa) and
exoteric law (sharīʿa), freedom and servanthood, union and
separation, intoxication and sobriety, wayfaring and
attraction, annihilation and subsistence, and the like.
Alluding to this Muḥammadan drinking place and Adamic
witnessing-site, I wrote:
I am the meeting of the two oceans
The isthmus of pre-eternity
I wore every color
Thereby becoming colorless
I have no name, no place
A uniter of opposites
My body is the manifestation-site of my attributes
A veil to the eye
Moreover, since the Mūsā-presence has this specific
characteristic, its manifestation from the womb of Sainthood
begins with a revealed inspiration: When We revealed to
thy mother that which was revealed.73 For the mother of
Mūsā was not a Prophetess, but a righteous woman, and so
that inrush came to her from the All-Merciful so that she may
manifest God's wisdom and desire with respect to Moses.
God says in His Holy Book: When We revealed to thy
mother that which was revealed: “Cast him into the ark
and cast it into the sea. Then the sea will throw him upon
the bank. An enemy unto Me and an enemy unto him
shall take him.” And I cast upon thee a love from Me,
that thou might be formed under My eye.74 Mūsā’s mother
was unable to resist the assault of the inrush. She hastened to
carry out what was commanded of her, placing her beloved
child in the ark that she built, and casting him into the sea.
This was in order to manifest the subtle luminous realities
that connect the all-encompassing Muḥammadan presence
and the Mūsā-presence. For the presences of the Prophets
consist of descents of the Muḥammadan Reality (al-ḥaqīqa
al-Muḥammadiyya) and its assumption of various colors
depending on their receptivities and receptacles.
We mentioned earlier how the Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬would expose
his body to rain in order to seek replenishment from the
disclosures of the name the Living (al-Ḥayy). He would
uncover his head in order to welcome the divine attribute of
Life from the realm of invincibility. Concerning water, God
says: We made every living thing from water.75 The Living
in reality is God: He is the Living, there is no god but He.76
As for the life that flows through things in the realm of
possibility, it is metaphorical, bereft, and perishing, as per the
verse: All things are perishing, save His Face.77
The water to which al-Muṣṭafā ‫ ﷺ‬exposed himself was
primordial water that has no color or taste, since water that
descends from heaven is the origin of all water on earth. God
says: Hast thou not considered that God sends down
water from the sky, and conducts it as springs in the
earth.78 For he ‫ ﷺ‬is the isthmus between the Real and
creation, and the intermediary between the realm of
invincibility (jabarūt) and the earth of descending revelations
(arḍ al-tanazzulāt). He is the inmost center who brings
together the foundation of the sciences, and through whom
the sciences and secrets flow onto the people in accordance
with their preparedness. Ibn Mashīsh, God be pleased with
him, alludes to this meaning when he says:
“Dear God, invoke blessings upon the one from whom the
secrets split, the lights gush forth, in whom the realities
ascend, and upon whom the sciences of Adam descended so
that he incapacitated all people.”
The Prophets, peace and blessings be upon them, are the
people who are most replenished by his noble presence,
followed by the knowers of God, as per the hadith: “The
knowers are the heirs of the prophets.”79 Given that this is the
case, the water into which Mūsā, peace be upon him, was
cast is a secondary water that took on the color of the Glass
Container (zujāja) that he flowed through. The water of
knowledge that he took from the Law of the All-Merciful is
water drawn from the universal and all-encompassing
Muḥammadan Presence, and the ark is an allusion to the
body, which is the grave that encloses the secret of the spirit.
God first created stillness, which generated coldness. Then
He looked at it with a gaze of love and beauty, and the
stillness was stirred into motion out of awe of the Real and
intense yearning. Heat was generated from this motion, and
the heat was coupled with wetness, which resulted in the four
elements—fire, air, water, and earth—and from those
constituents all of creation came into being. God then placed
these elements in the human body, which is a transcription of
the worlds. To this effect, Sayyidunā ʿAlī said: “You
consider yourself to be a small entity, yet within you the
macrocosm is enfolded.”
Since the Real blew His spirit into this body, the Adamite is
an image of the upper world and the lower world. As such,
anything that you imagine in your thoughts is a creature like
you, and everything that you conceive of in your mind is an
existent, even if you have not previously seen it, and no
matter how strange it may be, for nothing can become
imprinted in your imagination unless it issues from the
presence of “Be”—so understand!
 We said that the ark is an allusion to Mūsā’s body. When
the spirit, as it were, was cast into it, he began to cast and
things were receptive to his activity. His presence was a
manifestation-site for the levels of casting. God says: He cast
his staff, and behold, it was a serpent manifest,80 because
the levels of casting were perfected within him. God also
says of him: I cast upon thee a love from Me, that thou
mightest be formed under My eye.81 Thus God blessed him
with knowledge and gnosis through the wisdom of his casting
into the ocean. He exercised control over whatever God
decreed and willed, in accordance with his knowledge. He
governed his ark through the spiritual force within him, and
through this God gave him venerability and distinction,
because the veils between his spirit and his body were lifted,
so that the properties of the spirit flowed over the ark. To this
effect, God mentions what remained of Mūsā that manifested
in Saul, or Ṭālūt, when He says: Their prophet said to
them, “Truly the sign of his sovereignty shall be that the
ark come to you bearing tranquility from your Lord and
a remnant left by the House of Moses and the House of
Aaron, borne by the angels. Truly in that is a sign for you,
if you are believers”.82 Mūsā’s venerability and standing
remained in the ark, and gave Saul the glad tidings of a
journey through the spheres and sublime secrets. Through it
he came to know the esoteric realities of the three worlds.
Know, dear wayfarers, that the Real made the spirit as a
governor of the human body. It rules over it, and the body is
like an instrument that is steered by the spirit however it
pleases. Thus, whoever gazes at the sensory realm finds that
the Real governs the world by the world. That is, he beholds
the interdependence, complementarity, and mutual benefit of
all things. Each thing depends on another. If the sky did not
rain, the earth would not grow plants; if you do not plow, you
cannot eat; if it were not for reproduction and intermarriage,
there would be no procreation, and so on. Beholding the
plurality of these corporeal figures gives a picture of things
serving each other, governing their affairs among themselves.
For the world is divided into producers and recipients of
effects, and that which sometimes produces effects may
become a recipient of effects at other times. The Real
governs the world such that all things subsist through the
Real.
However, when you behold things through inner vision,
you find that God’s commanding reality and names govern
and manage the corporeal figures. You witness that the Real
governs the world through the form of the world; that is,
through the Perfect Man. To this effect, the hadith has
reached us that “God created Adam upon His form.”83 God
made him upon His form through the properties of His names
and attributes, without any indwelling or unification. The
Perfect Man is thus the form of the cosmos because he is the
inmost core that brings together all that is scattered in the
cosmos.
Such is the state of Mūsā, who was the disclosure-site of
the Hidden Alif of the All-Merciful. He exercised control
over parts of the world by God’s leave, through the
knowledge of the Alif, and in accordance with divine power
and will. Thus he exercised control over the ocean and rocks.
This is also the secret of why, as a hadith tells us, Āsiya, may
God be pleased with her, came to the Pharaoh and said [that
baby Moses would be] A comfort for me and for you,84
Pharaoh responded, “He will be for you; as for me, I have no
need for him.” The Messenger of God ‫ ﷺ‬said: “I swear by
the One who is worthy of being sworn by, that had the
Pharaoh affirmed him as his comfort just as his wife did, then
God would have guided him just as He guided her. But he
was forbidden from that.”85 This is because any presumption
of good or bad faith you have in the Perfect Man is applied to
you. So chose for yourself whatever you want, for he is the
pure mirror through which you gaze at your own true nature.
The secret of this matter is that the first gaze, prior to the
creation of creation, was a gaze of the non-delimited names
in the void. That is, Hidden Alifs which were names in a state
of non-delimitation, were placed. The latter’s specific
characteristics manifested in stillness when the Real
disclosed Himself therein, whereupon the dictates of each
name manifested. Thus, everything in the cosmos is none
other than a trace of the name-disclosures, and the Real
governs the cosmos through His most beautiful names. The
following illustration explains the relationship of what we
have just mentioned to the disciple’s wayfaring:

The Hāʾ of Identity [or of Ipseity], is divided by the most

beautiful names into ninety-nine parts. Each part takes one of
the divine names, and stands opposite to its counterpart on
the other side. With the completion of the one-hundred, there
is the Supreme Name in which all the most-beautiful names
are enfolded. All the names come together at the center of the
Hāʾ, whose inward dimension is the Hidden Alif. This is why
we say that it is a Muḥammadan-Aḥmadan Handful. It is a
Muḥammadan Mīm, within which there is an Aḥmadan Alif.
We also say that it is the Kaʿba, since the Kaʿba is the center
of the earth and the qibla toward which we pray. Similarly,
the center of the Hāʾ is the qibla to which the wayfarers turn
in their constant prayer. In his wayfaring, the disciple starts at
the Hāʾ-center and journeys toward the Singular Alif. When
the disciple settles in the direction of the Supreme Name in
the circle, his journey is shortened for him and the veils
between him and the Alif are lifted. As for the two Lāms, they
take on the number of the seventy-thousand veils between the
Real and creation. The Beloved ‫ ﷺ‬said: “Beneath God
there are seventy-thousand veils of Light and darkness. If a
soul were to hear a whisper of those veils, it would pass
away.”86 Piercing through these veils is easy for the one
whose sole aim is the Secret of the Secret. As for the one
who settles in the direction of one name, he must complete
the full Hāʾ-cycle in order to pass through the ninety-nine
names in their entirety. When the spiritual traveler attains
realization of the Hidden Alif, he will find himself to be
journeying through all the ninety-nine names, just as the
number one flows through all the other numbers.
The manifestation of Sayyidunā Mūsā, peace be upon him,
was from the Alif of the All-Merciful (al-Alif al-Raḥmānī)
that we explained earlier, for he is a Prophet and a
Messenger. He thus exercised control over the Hāʾ-stillness
with his staff, and manifested its letters in it. For prophecy
begins from the Alif and descends down to the Hāʾ in order to
bring about God’s rulings. Sainthood, for its part, begins its
journey from and within the Hāʾ, and ascends to its liminal
position in the Alif. Moreover, the saint only attains
knowledge, not realization, of the Alif—so understand!
It is in this sense that one understands the one who said:
“We, the friends of God, plunged into an ocean at whose
shore the Prophets stood.” The shore where the Prophets
stood is the Hāʾ. For they descend from the Alif above down
to the Hāʾ below, whereas the journey of the saints is
upward. For Prophethood is sheer purity, and it was sent in
order to bind people to the Law of the All-Merciful. As for
Sainthood, its journey and its direction is toward the realm of
the absolute where the Prophet begins, and in the end the
saint attains none other than the isthmus-dot in the Alif.
 8. The Prime Matter of the Names
(Hayūlā al-Asmāʾ)
Mudhākara from the Friday
Gathering of 23rd Rajab 1435 / May 23rd 2014

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm

Know, dear servant of God, that every name with which the
Real is named in His Holy Book or the blessed Sunna has a
particular effect that manifests upon its disclosure. Every
name-disclosure (tajallī asmāʾī) falls inside the circle of
mercy because of the special nature of the name the All-
Merciful (al-Raḥmān), as God says, The All-Merciful,
settled upon the Throne.87 When the names interact and
interconnect, the previously nonexistent effect becomes
manifest.
When the wayfarer’s inner vision penetrates into the realm
of possibility, he witnesses how every effect has a connection
to two or more names. This becomes evident to the one who
invokes the singular Name (al-ism al-mufrad), the Name that
encompasses all the names and attributes. Invoking this noble
name strengthens the luminosity of the invoker, so that he
witnesses how every atom in God’s vast creation is
connected to one or two of the Most Beautiful Names of
God. When this happens, God makes him aware of the spirit
of every name that discloses itself to him, which is the
distinct characteristic that is inherent to each name. God
allows him to witness the names at the level of non-
delimitation as they truly are, free from letters and writing.
He witnesses how, when they interact with one another, their
state is changed from non-manifestation (buṭūn) to
manifestation (ẓuhūr), or from non-delimitation (iṭlāq) to
delimitation (taqyīd). For instance, God’s name the Powerful
(al-Qadīr) in a state of non-delimitation is free from letters
and writing, hallowed beyond the Alif, the Lām, the Qāf, the
Dāl, the Yāʾ and the Rāʾ [that make up the name al-Qadīr].
However, when it manifests in the Hāʾ of Identity, which
brings out its manifestation-sites and implications into the
sensory realm on the level of delimitation, it is whelmed in
the attribute of being. Thus the letters are written, and the ink
of non-delimitation is shaped into delimited letters.
Then, when the name al-Qadīr joins with the name the
Light (al-Nūr), it manifests in the heart of the novice
wayfarer in the form of a Niche (mishkāt), because he is
unable to bear the visitations of the Light unless it takes on a
likeness (mathal). Thus, the name moves from the state of
non-delimitation to the manifestation-site of delimitation. All
these forms and modes of delimitation are aspects of
annihilation (fanāʾ).
An example to illustrate this—and to God belongs to most
sublime example— is the carpenter, who moves wood from
the non-manifestation of its primordial substance to whatever
state is desired for it, such as a table or a chair. Likewise, the
names come to manifest their inevitable dictates, such that
their disclosures manifest as they intermingle.
So you must know them, O seeker, by their original natures
in both delimitation and non-delimitation. The way to attain
this knowledge is to follow the verse, Those who invoke
Allāh standing, sitting and on their sides,88 for God says
that they invoke the All-Encompassing Name, not the name
of the All-Merciful or any other name. Then the verse
continues, And they ponder the creation of the heavens
and the earth, and they say “Our Lord, you did not create
this in vain! Glory be unto You! Spare us from the
torment of the fire”.89 The beginning of the realm of
possibility was stillness set into motion by names seeking
their inevitable dictates, which caused existence (wujūd) to
manifest in its entirety. All of this was then combined into a
distinct and singular prototype, of which the blessed
Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬said, “God created Adam in His form.” This
Perfect Man therefore became the embodiment of all
presences and attributes. Not every human being has this
honor, however, though he may share Adam’s outward form,
because he at odds with Adam’s inner reality. Another
narration of the hadith has, “God created Adam in the form
of the All-Merciful (al-Raḥmān),”90 which is to say in the
form of the name of the name, the secret of the secret, which
is the Lām of Constriction (lām al-qabḍ), the second Lām of
the divine name Allāh, the first being the Lām of Gnosis (lām
al-maʿrifa). And by virtue of being created upon the Lām of
Constriction, he became the vicegerent (khalīfa) and the
locus of the gaze of the Real. The human being is thus the
concealed secret (ṭalsum) and the pure meaning. The one
who understands this meaning, and acknowledges its inner
true sublime worth, will pierce through it unto knowledge of
his Creator.
If you do not wish to be deprived of the grace (baraka) of
the descended revelation (tanzīl), then take what was
transmitted from the Master of the Messengers exactly as it is
in its outward meaning, without interpreting it metaphorically
(taʾwīl), and then consider the level from which this
discourse emerged, and of what level it was speaking. For the
supreme Essence has attributes, names, properties and acts,
and it is the sum total of all these that tells us what the holy
Essence is. We cannot describe it except as it is related to us
in the Holy Book, or as the noble Messenger described it.
Now, since the Essence, attributes, names, acts and
properties are five levels (dhāt, ṣifāt, asmāʾ, afʿāl, aḥkām),
and since the numerical value of the letter Hāʾ is five, it is
necessary for the one who wishes to enter into the Hāʾ of
Identity, which brings together the five levels, to attain
realization of the five pillars of Islam with diligence. He must
do this until he is graced with direct knowledge of God’s
togetherness (maʿiyya), so that he witnesses the togetherness
of the Essence as it manifests through the names and
attributes. God’s togetherness is not like that of created
things, because the togetherness of a created being only lasts
as long as you are with him, and ceases to be when you are
apart from him. When you separate God’s name from what it
names, and His attribute from its object, you treat Him as a
created being without realizing it—and He is hallowed
beyond that. The one who desires to know God’s Oneness
must therefore depart from his bodily nature and stand at the
door of God’s folk.
God can be known and also cannot be known; it is both yes
and no. This is separation and union (faṣl and waṣl). The
essence of separation lies in union, and the essence of union
lies in separation. In His Holy Book, God guides us to a
twofold Path to knowing Him: witnessing His signs upon the
horizons, and witnessing His signs within the self. He says,
We shall show them Our signs upon the horizons and
within themselves, until it becomes clear to them that He
is the Real.91 To contemplate the horizons means to
contemplate the heavens and the earth, where there is the
presence of the spatial vastness. As for contemplating the
soul, it means to contemplate the universal all-encompassing
subtlety that is the perfect human being (al-insān al-kāmil),
within whom God engendered all the realities in the
macrocosm (al-ʿālam al-kabīr). He is the presence of non-
spatial vastness in the manifestation-site of delimitation
(maẓhar al-taqyīd). It is as though He brought forth Hidden
Alifs that could not be encompassed in the horizons nor in the
soul, but could be encompassed in his heart. He says, We
have ennobled the children of Adam;92 that is, given him
honor and high degree. That this verse is number seventy
alludes to how the perfect human being is the manifestation-
site of the seventy veils, in the sense that God brought
together all the names in him by virtue of the Hāʾ of Identity.
He is thus united to this cosmos and separated from it at the
same time: united in the sense that he is a part of it, and
separated in the sense that he is a cosmos in and of himself.
To this effect, Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh al-Iskandarī says, “The cosmos
encompasses you only in your corporeal nature; it cannot
encompass you in your spirit nature.” The human being
contains heavens in the form of the brain; stars in the form of
the outer and inner sensory faculties; a throne in the form of
the spirit; a pedestal (kursī) in the form of the soul; a pen in
the form of the intellect; angels in the form of the faculties;
mountains in the form of the bones; hills in the form of the
veins; plants in the form of the hair, and so on.
Then God appointed this perfect human being as the spirit
of the macrocosm, and it is for this reason that everything is
under his subjugation (taskhīr). God says, He subjugated
unto you whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is
on the earth, altogether. Truly in that are signs for a
people who reflect.93 All creatures that glorify feel ardent
love for him because he embodies all the presences, for he is
the heart of cosmos inasmuch as his heart is the locus for the
Muḥammadan reality, and the Muḥammadan Light flows
through all beings. Thus it is as though the Light that flows
through everything longs for his Light, which is disclosed in
his heart.
To better understand this, let us depict it with an
illustration.
 The more you depart from the Hāʾ-delimitation, the more
you come to discover the names at the level of non-
delimitation, because what lies between the Hāʾ and the Alif
of the Name, the void between the two, is all non-delimited.
The disciple must always focus on the center, where the point
of Identity is, because to contemplate the center is to
contemplate the straight subtle isthmus-line that connects the
Hāʾ of Identity to the Singular Alif. Focusing at the center of
the circle is to orient oneself towards the Muḥammadan
Aḥmadan Qibla, which is disclosure-site of the perfect
human. As for turning to that which is above the isthmus or
beneath it, it may distract you from your goal. Reflect on how
the righteous ones, when they commenced prayer, would act
as though Paradise were to their right (corresponding to the
part of the name above the isthmus-line), and Hell were to
their left (beneath the isthmus-line), and as though their feet
were upon the bridge that leads over Hell to Paradise
(corresponding to the imaginary isthmus-line in the name).
God Himself was their Qibla, the Singular Alif. Just so, the
wayfarer must make it his sole concern to arrive at and attain
union with the Singular Alif.
 9. The Light of Union (Nūr al-Waṣl)
Mudhākara from the Friday
Gathering of 1st Shaʿbān 1435 / May 30th 2014

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm

We have previously mentioned the wisdom of casting
Sayyidunā Mūsā, peace be upon him, in the ark, then casting
him in the ocean. It remains for us to discuss this event as an
aspect of the manifestation of union and separation (waṣl and
faṣl). This is because casting a young child into an ark then
casting it into the ocean would usually spell certain
destruction, but in this case God manifested the attribute of
salvation (najāt) in the disclosure-site of destruction. That is
to say, on the level of outward separation, God manifested
the transcendent meanings of union, which took the form of
salvation and life for Sayyidunā Mūsā. That is one aspect;
another is that Pharaoh wanted to slay Mūsā; this was during
the time when he had ordered that all newborns be slain. This
is another of the manifestations of separation, because
through it God brings out a union from the heart of this
separation. Thus He appointed Pharaoh himself as the
adoptive parent of Mūsā. This is because Mūsā came into
existence clothed with the Lights of the verse, I cast upon
you a love from Me,94 and so anyone who saw him loved
him, even Pharaoh.
From the forms of this separation by which he was tested,
Mūsā the Confidant of God acquired wisdom from the All-
Sustaining Living One, who said, We tried you with trials.95
Thus, he acquired the pure meanings of union, which
manifested in two forms: a sensory form, and a supra-sensory
form. The sensory form was the life that he acquired when he
was saved from being killed, and the supra-sensory form was
the life of knowledge that God bestowed upon him from the
water of life. This is the life God wants every human being to
live—a life of luminous knowledge. He says, Is he who is
dead and to whom we give life, making for him a Light by
which to walk among mankind, like unto one who is in
darkness from which he does not emerge?96 Thus, when
God gives someone a Light of union from the essence of his
lower self’s separation, at the hands of a training, nurturing
shaykh (shaykh murabbī), He gives him the life of the heart
after his heart had languished in the deathly pall of other-
than-God. This is divine Light, cast into the hearts of the
lovers. When you contemplate this Light with the attribute of
knowledge, you find it to be the very essence of knowledge.
When you contemplate it with the attribute of proximity to
God, you find it to be a rope that connects the servant to the
Lord, for it is the embodying essence of all that is good.
This Light is the balance of divine justice (mīzān al-qisṭās
al-ilahī) with which the wayfarer weighs his state with God.
Therefore, if you wish to know your proximity to Him, or
your knowledge of Him, then look into your innermost heart.
If you find Light therein, you will find with it knowledge,
proximity and love. If you do not find Light there, then the
realities of faith do not exist in your heart. And it is in the
measure of the size of that Light within you that you come to
discover whether you are near or far. You come to know the
extent of your distance, and the extent of your knowledge.
This Light is a subtle flowing entity. That is why God says
that it is a Light by which to walk among mankind.97 He
does not say “to walk between mankind,” because the Light,
on account of its subtle lordly grace, pierces through all
human bodies and obliterates all forms within the realm of
possibility from the site of the heart. For it is beginningless
and pre-eternal, and when the pre-eternal is united with the
temporal, the temporal vanishes and the pre-eternal remains.
Now, the knowledge that yields the fruit of fear is
knowledge that bursts from the presence of Light. Those who
possess it are the knowers whom God praises in the verse,
Only the knowers among His servants fear God.98 Fear
and awe manifest upon the carpet of direct witnessing, and so
long as you affirm existence for your own self, you are
ignorant. God affirms things in the realm of possibility
through His subtle grace, which flows through this realm of
non-existence, until He manifests non-existence within non-
existence.
Dear wayfarer, if you desire to exit from the lowlands of
animality (ḥayawāniyya) to the realities for which God has
ennobled you, you must practice self-surveillance
(murāqaba) of your state with God. Look at your innermost
heart: has it been meshed with the Light of faith? The
believer who has taste (dhawq) is the one in whose heart God
casts a Light. When Light descends into the hearts of those
who orient themselves to God, it is intensely jealous. If it
discovers in your heart doubt or carelessness with regard to
the rulings of God, or if it finds it to be filled with egotism
that prevents you from giving others their due and returning
their trusts, then you should know that just as that Light has
entered into your heart, it will leave it as well. If you return to
the darkness, you will remain ignorant of your own reality,
by which God ennobled you over all other creatures.
Dear wayfarer, faith is of two sorts: a faith of conformism
(taqlīd) for the masses, and a faith of luminosity and
realization for the elites. Reflect on how the Prophet ‫ﷺ‬
compares the believer to the Light of God when he says,
“Fear the perspicacity of the believer, for he sees with the
Light of God.”99 If you observe the rulings of the religion
without Light, you are like an employee who works only to
receive payment. But if you are a believer by virtue of the
Light that descended into your heart, you are in the registry
of the lovers, in a state of presence.
Now the heart of the believer is a luminous Lamp (sirāj) by
which he may behold the realities of things. It is for this
reason that a warning was issued about his perspicacity, as
well as the truthfulness of his tongue, which reflects the
truthfulness and sincerity of his heart. The hadith says,
“Beware of the perspicacity of the believer, for he sees with
the Light of God, and he speaks with divine success.”100 The
reason for this warning is that when a believer who is in this
state casts his gaze upon you, his regard may either elevate
you to the highest of heights, or reduce you to the lowest of
lows. He might draw you near, or send you afar, by virtue of
the perspicacity (firāsa) that God bestowed upon him, and by
virtue of being eclipsed in the presence of the Light.
As for the one who has a dark heart, he is like a person who
dwells in a dark home beneath the earth, fumbling about
through three layers of darkness: the darkness of creed; the
darkness of speech; and the darkness of deeds. One darkness
leads to the other. The way out of these layers of darkness is
the Path of invocation through permission (idhn); a Path that
is connected to the secret core of the Blessed Tree. For when
a person begins to invoke God, he enters into the arena of the
greater jihad (al-jihād al-akbar), which is the struggle against
the lower self. In order to come out victorious from this
battle, he must pay no regard to others, and must work on
himself exclusively, without leaving his grave which is his
own soul.
The Path of invocation is the Path of guidance that enables
one to attain the station of bewilderment, which is life. The
intellect is incapable of perceiving this station, however,
because its means of perception prevents it from intellecting
two opposites at once. As for the heart, it directly tastes the
pure meaning of the two opposites, and so it attains
knowledge of God. Note how God says, He is the First, the
Last, the Manifest, and the Nonmanifest,101 thus bringing
opposites together. In order to understand this, you need
genuine and sound taste, for verifying this truth is not
something that can be expressed with words. It is not enough
to say that God is the Manifest; rather, it is necessary to
directly taste the meaning of His manifestation.
The intellect is incapable of contemplating what it means
for two opposites to unite. Yet faith confirms this, because it
is a truthful speech. The Path to realized faith in the heart is
what allows you to attain bewilderment, because when your
heart is stirred into motion, it is as though the entirety of
creation has moved. If, through this movement of the heart,
you do not arrive at bewilderment in God, or bewilderment in
the spiritual realm, then your heart is dead. The unveiling of
the heart is the way to directly tasting the realities of faith.
You may happen to be in a small home in which you behold
countless angels. If you try to understand this with the
intellect, it becomes impossible, because you will conclude
that the home does not have enough space for that many
angels. When a disciple finds a Shaykh of training who casts
the gleam of Light into his heart, he should know that the
entire cosmos, from the divine Throne down to the earth, is
brought together in it. Do not belittle the Light when it
divulges your state and you find that it is small. It is you who
is small, because you are far from it. If you were close, you
would see it before you see your own soul. Moreover, when
it unveils its reality to you, it reduces you and what you see
to naught.
The eye deems the star to be small
But the fault lies in the smallness of the viewer, not the
 star.102
Dear servants of God, the twinkling gleam (lamḥa) that
manifests in the hearts of wayfarers brings together all things
within its fold. God makes this plain to us in the Holy Book
when He says: Our Command is naught but one, like the
twinkling (lamḥ) of an eye.103 What this means is that all of
the time that humanity has lived, and will live, in this world
and the next, and all of the cosmic changes, are for God like
the twinkling of an eye. Dear wayfarer, you have this
twinkling gleam that brings together all that is in the heavens
and the earth. Why then do you have such low esteem for it?
Alas for the servants!104
Revere it! Revere it! That is the greatest Path and the
supreme elixir to attain the eminent presence. Whoever lacks
reverence cannot hope to travel the Path. Ours is the Path of
love, and love’s fountainhead is reverence. Strive, God have
mercy on you, for you will sooner or later find yourself
among the people of the grave—and then what will you do?
 10. Motion and Rest (al-ḥaraka waʾl-
sukūn)
Mudhākara from the Friday
Gathering of 7th Shaʿbān 1435 / June 6th 2014

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm

Know, dear disciple, that motion is an existential act that
denotes life, while rest is an expression of total death.
Whoever finds rest in the presence of the Real, as per the
dictate of “die before you die,” such that his spirit ascends to
the realm of the Real, is enlivened by the subtle graces that
disclose themselves from the treasuries of, Is he who was
dead, and to whom We give life, making for him a Light
by which to walk among mankind.105 Thus, whoever
verifies his own attribute, which is the darkness of
nonexistence, is replenished by the Real, who sprinkles His
Light upon him. The blessed Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬said: “God created
His creation in darkness, then He cast His Light upon it.
Whoever is touched by that Light is guided, and whoever is
not touched by it is misguided.”106 Thereupon, his rest is set
into motion. Do you not see how the earth is in a state of rest,
and when water showers upon it, it moves? God says: And
thou sees the earth desiccated, but when We send down
water upon it, it stirs and swells and produces every
delightful kind.107 Similarly, the knower of God finds
himself in a state of rest, and when he receives the waters of
life, he stirs into motion. Out of his motion, all delightful
kinds of lights and secrets are produced. For the lights are the
delights of the spiritual realm, and the secrets are the delights
of the invincible realm (jabarūt).
Concerning the Path, God’s folk have said: “Its beginning
is madness, its middle is sciences, and its end is rest.” Its
beginning is madness when the secret of the Essence is
unveiled to the disciple, and he is astonished by witnessing
God’s grandeur. Thereupon, the tongue moves, the limbs
move, and he speaks of what lies beyond the intellect. As for
the middle, it is sciences when he awakens from his
intoxication and returns to the attributes and the names. As
for its end, it is rest when he attains the union of the All. The
first rest was the rest of nonexistence, and the second was the
rest of existence.
The earth represents the feminine which, when it joins in
matrimony with masculine water, produces a pair from all
things. The descent of rainwater upon the earth is really a
disclosure of the name the Living upon it, so that life may
flow through it, and so that it may have motion. The motion
of the earth generates vegetation, and produces none other
than evens and pairs. Whoever beholds it through union finds
it to be one inasmuch as it is an earth; and whoever beholds
what is produced from it finds multiplicity in it. That
multiplicity is from the earth, and to the earth it shall return.
In fact, the universe itself was a singular entity; God says:
Have those who disbelieve not considered that the
heavens and the earth were a stitched mass, and We
unstitched them? And We made every living thing from
water.108 The engendered universe was brought together in a
single glimmer or particle. The particle was unstitched, and
multiplicity manifested from it. From that single particular,
multiplicity appeared in all its plurality. Moreover, if we
return to the hadith of Jābir concerning the Muḥammadan
Light from which the Real created all things, we find that
multiplicity emerged from the one. The origin is therefore the
handful of Light from which all existences were derived.
The wisdom behind all of this is to attain direct knowledge
of God. For the Real makes Himself known to us through
each of His disclosures in order for us to know Him. He is
exclusively One in respect of His Essence, even though the
multiplicity of His names are affixed to Him. This
multiplicity causes the variety and plurality of disclosures,
even though all return to one Essence. The disclosures are
multiple, while the divine Self is one. Similarly, when you
consider the singular Name, you find it to be solitary; but
when you consider how the Name encompasses all the names
and qualities, you discover that it comprises names that are
beyond reckoning and calculation. The Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬said in
the supplication by which he taught us to dispel grief and
anxiety,
“Dear God, I am Your servant and the son of Your servant.
My forelock is in Your Hand; Your judgment over me is
done; Your decree concerning me is just; I beseech You
through each name that belongs to You, by which You have
called Yourself, or which You have sent down in Your Book,
or taught to any one of Your creatures, or kept to Yourself in
Your knowledge of the unseen, to make the holy Qurʾān the
springtime of my heart, the Light of my breast, the remedy
for my grief, and the dispeller of my anxiety and sorrow.”109
The names and qualities are thus many, and the Path to
felicity is the Path of characterizing oneself by the names that
one is permitted to assume, such as the Noble (al-Karīm), the
Pardoner (al-ʿAfū), the All-Merciful (al-Raḥmān), and so
forth. Moreover, in the Hāʾ of Identity, the names have
counterparts by virtue of their oppositionality. As for the
names that have no opposites, such as the Only (al-Aḥad), the
One (al-Wāḥid), the Self-Sufficient (al-Ṣamad), and the
Singular (al-Fard), they are located in the center of the Hāʾ
of Identity. Moreover, seeing the Name through the gate of
the Hāʾ alludes to multiplicity from the One. With respect to
wayfaring, when the piercing star manifests itself to you from
different directions, then you are journeying toward the unity
of the attributes.
But if you focus on the center of your heart, then you are
heading toward the unity of the Essence. Listen to the words
of the Beloved ‫ﷺ‬, who said: “Place Light in my heart,”
thus alluding to the unity of the Essence. Concerning the
illumination of directions, he said, “and place Light above
me, and Light beneath me, and Light to my right, and Light
to my left” thereby alluding to the unity of the attributes. This
is why we begin the disciple’s journey with the unity of the
Essence, then we bring him back to the unity of the attributes,
so that if he were to die, he would die as a verifier of the
unity of the Essence and as a monotheist.
You should know, moreover, that to profess unity of the
attributes is to bring about both the name and its opposite.
This is implied by way of allusion in the Prophet’s ‫ﷺ‬
supplication: “and place on my right Light, and on my left
Light…,” mentioning each direction and its opposite.
Likewise, in the Hāʾ of Identity, you bring about every name
and its opposite. As for the Essence, you must unite all the
names within it, and especially the names of the Essence that
have no opposites. This is done through the practice of
wayfaring by focusing on the Light in the center of the circle
of the Shuʿayb-heart. For when you plunge into the center,
you arrive at the unity of the Essence.
God’s folk have established a tangible allusion to this in
wayfaring by placing the rosary of ninety-nine beads around
their necks, upon their jugular vein, as if to say: “I am
dissolved in the center of the Hāʾ.” If you wish to tread their
Path, then bring together this absolute annihilation and
complete negation, which is the manifestation-site of “no
god” (lā ilāha), and delimit it after passing away in the union
of the Hāʾ, then pass away from all gods other than God, the
greatest of which is the pursuit of caprice, and then proclaim
“but God” (illā Allāh). You will then become a Hidden Alif.
Then bring together the complete annihilation, and bind it,
obliterate it completely, and plunge into the center of the Hāʾ,
then divide it into two halves: one that pertains to beauty, the
other to majesty; one that is nonmanifest, the other manifest.
This is their approach and their way, if you wish to ascend to
the cushion of the innermost Secret.
The delimitation of the absolute occurs in the Hāʾ of
Identity. The Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬said, “Between my home and my
pulpit is one of the meadows of the Garden,”110 thereby
delimiting the absolute, or the Garden, between his grave and
his pulpit, a distance that spans just a few meters at the
sensory level. As for the Garden at the level of the absolute,
it is just as God informed us: A Garden whose breadth is as
the breadth of heaven and earth.111
This is a glance at what discloses itself within the Hāʾ of
Identity, which is the Seal of al-Muṣṭafā ‫ﷺ‬. For he is the
City of Knowledge, and entering it is conditional upon
entering through the Gate of ʿAlī, may God ennoble his
countenance. This is why the chain of transmission for every
Sufi Path goes back to ʿAlī, for he completed the reading of
all the letters, and carried in his hand the Hidden Alif with its
two halves, thereby dividing Light and darkness, which was
his famous two-pronged sword. To help you understand Hāʾ-
wayfaring within the Name toward the Alif, and the
delimitation of the absolute in the Hāʾ of Identity, we give
the following illustration:
 You should know, moreover, that in the exoteric realm of
the Law, a Sunna of action (sunna fiʿliyya) has a stronger
weight, whereas in the esoteric realm, a Sunna of speech
(sunna fiʿliyya) is stronger. Wayfaring thus begins toward the
Alif on the basis of what you affirm in your heart. If you
affirm it in relation to the divine attributes, then you must
unite the opposites. But if you affirm it in relation to the
names, then you must become absent from letters and traces
by directly witnessing the flow of the Name. As for the
Essence, you must gather your saintly aspiration toward the
Alif-isthmus by plunging into the center of the Hāʾ and
uniting speech, deeds, and affirmations. Then you shall attain
the oneness of the Essence (tawḥīd al-dhāt).
However, with respect to the absolute, it is not possible to
restrict the Name. Hence, God’s folk differ in defining the
Supreme Name (al-ism al-aʿẓam). Some say that it is the
Singular Name; others say that it is the name the All-
Merciful (al-Raḥmān); and so on. Each perspective is correct
in one sense but not in another. For it is not possible to define
the Supreme Name except by considering it from all
directions.
Dear servants of God, wayfaring is realized only by the one
in whose heart the Light of al-Muṣṭafā ‫ ﷺ‬settles. For one
of the features of the Companions’ guidance is that they
learnt faith before the Qurʾān. According to ʿAbd Allāh b.
ʿUmar, may God be pleased with him, “There were long
periods of time when we would see faith before the Qurʾān.
Then a sura would descend upon Muḥammad ‫ ﷺ‬and we
would learn what is lawful, prohibited, commanded, and
restrained, and what we should halt with in it, just as you
learn the Qurʾān today. Moreover, I have seen men these
days who are given the Qurʾān before faith, and they read
from the Opening Chapter to the end without knowing its
commandments and prohibitions, nor what he should halt
with. He disperses them like low-quality dates.”112
The same holds for the righteous forefathers. Sayyidunā al-
Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, may God be pleased with him, said:
“This Qurʾān is being recited by slaves and children who
have no knowledge of its inner interpretation. Its verses are
only to be pondered by those who apply them, and its letters
are not to be memorized if its rules are neglected. Some say
that they have read the Qurʾān without dropping a single
letter. By God! They have dropped its entirety! For the
Qurʾān is not visible upon their character or deeds. Some of
them say: ‘I read the entire sura in one breath!’ By God, these
are not Qurʾān reciters, scholars, wise men, or pious people.
When has a reciter ever been like that? May God not multiply
their likes.”113
Dear servants of God, when the Light of faith enters into
the depths of the heart, then the heart expands and becomes
prepared to receive the Lights of revelation, and it imbibes its
worlds through prophetic guidance. This Light is the trust
that we were entrusted to protect. Ḥudhayfa, may God be
pleased with him, said:
“The Messenger of God ‫ ﷺ‬related to us two prophetic
narrations, one of which I have seen fulfilled, and the other of
which I await still. He related to us that trust descended into
the root of men’s hearts, then the Qurʾān was revealed, and
they learned it from the Qurʾān and then they learned it from
the Sunna. The Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬also related to us how trust will
be lifted. He said: ‘A person will go to sleep, and trust will be
taken away from his heart. Only its trace will remain like the
trace of a dark spot. Then he will go to sleep, and trust will
be lifted from his heart, so that its trace will resemble the
trace of a blister, as when you drop hot embers on your foot
and it swells up, though there is nothing inside.’ He dropped
some pebbles on his foot to illustrate this. Then he said:
‘People will trade, but there will hardly be a trustworthy
person among them, to the point that it will be said, “in such-
and-such tribe there is an honest man,” and later it will be
said about a man, “What a wise, polite and strong man he
is!,” though he will not have faith equal even to a mustard
seed in his heart.’ No doubt, there came a time when I did not
mind trading with anyone of you, for if he was a Muslim his
Islam would compel him to pay me what he owed me, and if
he was a Jew or a Christian, the Muslim official would
compel him to pay me what he owed me. But today I trade
only with certain people.”114
The trust that is intended in this hadith is the Muḥammadan
Light that pierces the hearts of men, and by virtue of which
genuine faith is realized. The following image illustrates the
relation between the Qurʾān, the Sunna, and the trust:

The one who preserves the Muḥammadan Light in his heart

will arrive at the reality of faith through ineluctable
witnessing. As for the one who neglects it, he has neglected
the real trust, and what remains of his religion is a form
without spirit. So make every effort, may God give you
success, to cultivate the Light of the Lord. Your time will be
joyful, your lives will be full of grace, and you will attain
abundant blessings in a short period.
11. Revealed Inspiration (Waḥy al-Ilhām)
Mudhākara from the Friday
Gathering of 14th Shaʿbān 1435 / 13th June 2014

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm

Know, may God have mercy on you, that the presences of
the Prophets ‫ ﷺ‬are none other than a glimmer from the
experiential taste of the Chosen One ‫ﷺ‬, and a color from
among his revealed colors. As for the reality of his all-
encompassing presence, it has no color. Or you might say
that the presences of the Prophets are none other than a word
from among the words that flow from his ocean of “I was
granted the all-encompassing words” (ūtītu jawāmiʿ al-
kalim).115 Thus, the Mūsā-presence is one among the aspects
of the all-encompassing Muḥammadan presence, and one of
his rivers that flow into his tremendous ocean.
The Mūsā-presence is considered to be one of the closest
presences to the Muḥammadan presence, following the
presence of ʿĪsā as per the hadith, “Of all mankind, I have the
strongest claim to Jesus son of Mary” (Anā awlá al-nās bi-
ibn Maryam).116 The Mūsā-presence is thus a clean mirror
that intensely reflects the Muḥammadan lights. His presence
is like Mount Ṭūr (Jabal Ṭūr), and this is why it contains a
variety of sciences and inner secrets. It is a disclosure-site of
union and separation, and a manifestation-site of the two
opposites (maẓhar al-ḍiddayn).
The one who possesses experiential taste (dhawq) always
lives in unseen worlds and in the Lights of faith, and these
presences grant an understanding of the taste of the secret
upon the carpet of ecstasy in the presence of the heart. In
whatever station you find yourself, you will taste of these
presences whether you are in the station of Lights (anwār) or
Secrets (asrār). It is in the measure of your tasting of the Path
of God that you will have understanding of the book of God.
The true knower of God deduces all things from nothing,
and the one who receives and understands is not like the one
who receives without understanding. The foundational
principle we learn from this lesson is that a person’s election
is commensurate with the trial he endures (ʿalá qadr al-
ibtilāʾ yakūnu al-ijtibāʾ). This is attested to by the hadith of
the Prophet ‫ﷺ‬, “The most sorely tried of all people are the
Prophets, then those who follow them, then those who follow
them.”117 In the case of Mūsā, peace be upon him, trials were
ever-present in his life. The first trial with which God tried
him was his killing of the Egyptian. Now, this killing on his
part was an inspiration (ilhām) from God, and this is why he
did not regret what he did, for he was a bearer of divine Law,
which stirred within him in order to manifest the command of
God. This was despite the fact that he did not know that what
occurred to him was an inspiration, and therefore ascribed the
error to Satan, as the verse says, This is of Satan’s doing.118
This concurs with his status of inerrancy (ʿiṣma).
Now in the course of the wayfarer’s journey to God, when
a Light of the Beloved ‫ ﷺ‬discloses itself to him, he recalls
what he used to do in the past and comes to know how to
distinguish between the deeds which arose from inspiration
and those which came from his lower self. In order to teach
us this, God brought Sayyidunā Mūsā together with
Sayyidunā al-Khiḍr, peace be upon him, the father of the
saints who drank from the water of life. During that
encounter he became aware that his slaying of the Egyptian
had been a lordly inspiration. For Sayyidunā al-Khiḍr
reenacted the events that had befallen Sayyidunā Mūsā in his
own past, so that he could see them with his own eyes. At
first he reproached al-Khiḍr for slaying the youth, until he
told him that it was an inspiration from God: I did not do so
from my own command.119 This was to remind him of how
he had slain the Egyptian. Herein lies a very important lesson
regarding spiritual training (tarbiya) which we can learn from
this blessed story: When the disciple finds a training,
nurturing shaykh, he must recall his past, both the bad and
the good, in order to prevent any self-admiration (ʿujb) from
arising within him when the subtleties of truth (laṭāʾif al-
ḥaqq) begin to unveil themselves before him. It is easy for
Satan to play games with the disciple at this stage, when he is
undergoing transformation from darkness to Light. The
disciple may come to think of himself as something, or
imagine that he has attained his goal, even though he is still
only a beginner. However, if he recalls the sins of his past,
this will shield him without doubt from self-admiration and
pride. And when his resolve becomes strong and his Light
grows, he will become like a foreigner in all of his
movements, living with the Real and through the Real.
Sayyidunā Mūsā was the only one who could see
Sayyidunā al-Khiḍr, and so no one else saw al-Khiḍr killing
the youth. Thus al-Khiḍr essentially made Mūsā aware of his
own inerrancy (ʿiṣma) by way of spiritual allusion (ishāra).
Likewise, his puncturing of the ship corresponded to the ark
into which Mūsā was placed and then cast into the ocean.
This again was a return to his own past, so that he would
remember it and thereby teach us that what appears
outwardly to be destruction is internally salvation. The
casting of Mūsā into the ocean was outwardly a form of
destruction, while inwardly it was salvation. Likewise, the
puncturing of the ship was outwardly destruction, but
inwardly salvation from the king who was seizing every ship
by force.
 Moreover, the story of Sayyidunā Mūsā with his mother
makes it clear that she was acting in accordance with
revealed inspiration without being aware of it. A person’s
deeds might be in accordance with revealed inspiration from
the Lord, yet they are unaware of it until they receive an
opening and come to know their true situation. Likewise,
when the mother of Mūsā, peace be upon him, cast her son
into the ocean, it is as if she was telling him, “If great things
are truly destined for you, then God will save you; and if not,
then it makes no difference whether Pharaoh or the ocean
slays you.” By way of allusion (ishāra), this teaches us that
the disciple benefits only when he directs himself towards the
Lord with his entirety, seeking God Almighty. If he remains
in a state of doubt, or puts one foot forward but not the other,
he might be rejected even while imagining himself to have
been accepted. We ask God for safety. The mother of Mūsā
did not doubt or procrastinate—she took her son in his
entirety and cast him into God’s mercy, thus bringing
together the two opposites through her own fear for Mūsā
and her hope that God would return him to her. Likewise,
dear disciple, fear for your heart from the darkness of other-
than-God, and cast it into God’s clemency, that He might
return it to you filled with Lights and make you worthy of
carrying the divine secrets. Cast your lower self into the
ocean of realities and become absent from all other than God,
and you shall attain proximity to the Lord.
Remember also that the first thing that God created after
rest was motion, and through motion the entirety of creation
was produced. So move too, that you might produce love,
and that the door of yearning might open before you, so that
you become truly alive even as you long for death. Learn the
wisdom from all things in your life. When the mother of
Mūsā believed in her Lord, He returned her son to her, and
she came to know that what she had done was a fruit revealed
inspiration, just as Sayyidunā Mūsā learned the same through
his encounter with al-Khiḍr. So seek the Khiḍr of your time,
one who will bring together for you your past, your present
and your future; one who will bring you out of all of that to
somewhere beyond time and place.
 12. The Flow of love (Sarayān al-Ḥubb)
Mudhākara from the Friday
Gathering of 18th Shawwāl 1435 / 15th August 2014

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm

Know, dear seeker of the Real, may God illuminate your
heart, that the nonexistent cosmos was made manifest with
love. The cosmos was in a state of rest, a rest of non-
existence (sukūn ʿadamī), and then the Real gazed upon it
with love, and what was at rest began to move with love, by
virtue of, “I loved to become known.” And what was once at
rest is still in motion, and the cosmos is still expanding.
Nothing in existence moves except through the power of
love, and for love’s sake. A rock tumbles down from the top
of a mountain to the bottom for the sake of love. Rain falls
from the sky to the earth for the sake of love. The root of
creation is the love of the pre-eternal. If His love did not flow
through us, we would not have become manifest in the realm
of possibility. The cosmos was manifest to the Real in pre-
eternity, and He brought it into manifestation through His
beginningless pre-eternal love. It is not as the philosophers
say, that the world was engendered by accident.
Now in the beginning there were two gazes: a gaze from
the Real toward creation, and a gaze from creation toward the
Real. This is so that you know, O nonexistent one, that it is
by the measure of the Creator’s love for you that you love the
Creator. He creates preparedness in you, and you come to
love Him by the measure of your preparedness (istiʿdād). In a
sacred hadith, God says, “My servant continues to draw near
unto Me with supererogatory devotions (nawāfil)”120 until his
preparedness becomes strong, whereupon he attains God’s
bounty of “until I love him.”
 Reflect on His statement “until I love him,” and you will
recognize that it is His love for you that comes first. He loves
them, and they love Him.121 He did not say, “until the
servant loves Me,” because you play no part in it. The love
that is attained through supererogatory devotions is a
particular love (maḥabba khāṣṣa). As for the love that made
all creation manifest, that is a universal love. The purpose of
this beginningless and universal love is to attain knowledge
of the Creator: I did not create the Jinn or humankind
except to worship Me.122 Ibn ʿAbbās, God be pleased with
him, interpreted this to mean, “to know Me.” Worship is the
Path, and knowledge is a subtle arrival upon the carpet of, “I
loved to become known.”
Thus, when you come to know Him, you will have attained
that particular love that lifts the veils from you. The illusion
of your existence will be dispelled from you, that you may
know His existence. The seeker passes away from spatial
directions by virtue of, “Dear God place in my heart a Light,
and on my tongue a Light, and in my hearing a Light, and in
my seeing a Light, and place behind me a Light, and in front
of me a Light, and above me a Light, and below me a Light,
and O God, grant me light!”
When he becomes extinct to the spatial directions by virtue
of this, the names and attributes are made manifest to him.
This does not mean that they were not manifest before his
extinction, but they were veiled from him by the
overwhelming power of illusion. For they exist, whereas you
and the cosmos are nonexistent.
Dear servants of God, the wayfarer attains love of the Real
when his heart becomes permeated by the tawḥīd of the
names and attributes, and the disclosures of the names and
attributes flow over him. The names become manifest for
him through their descent according to the Lām of Love and
yearning, which is the intermediary between the Real and the
effect (athar). However, when you are dominated by the
vision of the eye of union, you will attain nothing but
bewilderment and obliteration, for when the Essence
becomes manifest, the names, the attributes, the acts and the
properties become hidden.
Now in the method of the Karkariya Order, the disciple is
given the secret of union (sirr al-jamʿ), wherein the tawḥīd of
the Essence comes first, so that shadowy separation passes
from him. Then he drinks from the spring of the tawḥīd of the
names and attributes in the second secret (sirr), until he
returns to luminous separation, and advances through the
perfections of love, which are endless.
When the cover of love is lifted for the wayfarer, he sees
every motion as emerging from the flow of love within it. He
directly experiences how the Light of inner vision becomes
strengthened until it is united with the light of outer vision.
When this happens, he sees nothing without seeing Light
within it or before it. It is as if he sends to all beings a
message of love, and they reciprocate the same love, because
he sees within them the Muḥammadan Light. The Chosen
One ‫ ﷺ‬loved the palm trunk on which he used to lean, and
the trunk loved him in turn because he loved it first. There
were many other palm trunks, but he singled out that
particular trunk for a special distinction.
Now the human being, by virtue of being a vicegerent of
God, was given by God the ability to craft. He loves the
things he crafts, but they do not love him back, for that is a
uniquely divine characteristic. This explains why the only
actions a man usually attributes to God are supernatural
deeds that go beyond the bounds of his intellect. As for the
ordinary actions that occur by his own hands, he attributes
them to himself and thus is veiled by them from his Lord.
The knower of God sees every movement and deed as a
supernatural event (khāriq lil-ʿāda). So the Real creates, but
it is attributed to the servant; and the flow of love is so
powerful in the cosmos that creatures halt at their own selves
and do not refer them back to their origin. As a result they are
dominated by illusion, affirming the existence of their own
selves while being oblivious to the secret of God’s
sustenance (sirr al-qayyūmiyya) which flows through all
things. Some creatures are so intensely deluded that they
affirm themselves and deny the Real; and these are the most
veiled of all people.
When a seeker finds a training, nurturing shaykh, the first
thing the shaykh does is dispel this illusion from him and
nourish his essence with the Light of understanding. As for
the heavily veiled one in whom the remnant of ego remains,
it is difficult for him to understand these realities, which is
why you find him betraying his covenant. Of all people, he is
the most eager to affirm his own existence and to cling to
illusion. Nor is this illusion exclusive to human beings, for
the jinn suffer from it even worse, and affirm their existence
even more stubbornly.
When you come to realize what illusion truly is, you will
see that it is nothing at all. It is like a mirage, as God says, As
for those who disbelieve, their works are like a mirage in
the desert that the thirsty man takes to be water, until he
comes to it and finds it to be nothing; but he finds God
there, and He pays him his account in full; and God is
swift in reckoning. Or like the darkness of a deep sea,
covered by a wave, above it a wave, above it clouds—
layer upon layer of darkness! When he holds out his
hand, he can scarcely see it. And he to whom God grants
no Light, has no Light.123
The spirit of this allusion brings out the fact that clinging to
illusion is kufr, the cover of nonexistent reality (al-haqīqa al-
ʿadamiyya). To us belongs direct witnessing (shuhūd), not
existence (wujūd). If you only attained realization, you would
find God there with you. But as long as your hearts are
overwhelmed by the darkness of other-than-God, your insight
will be sealed up and your Lights extinguished. And he to
whom God grants no Light, has no Light. We ask God’s
protection from deprivation after bestowal!
So strengthen the Light of the Beloved in your heart until it
becomes manifest in your eyesight, and you become like the
thread of divine power which negates the effect and affirms
the Real. You will not attain experiential taste of perfection
until you attain knowledge of the Kāf of Virtue (iḥsān). Then
the Lām of Longing (ʿishq) will become manifest for you,
and reveal its secrets by virtue of perfect love.
13. The Breath of the All-Merciful (Nafas
al-Raḥmān)
Mudhākara from the Friday
Gathering of 25th Shawwāl 1435 / 22nd August 2014

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm

Know, dear wayfarer, may God assist you with His holy
spirit, that the forms of possibilities were manifest in pre-
eternity by virtue of the immutable entities (al-aʿyān al-
thābita). Then the Real made them manifest in the realm of
possibility through the inevitable disclosures of His names
and attributes, which sought to manifest their own inevitable
dictates and thus dressed them in the garb of existence
though in truth they are nonexistent.
This was in order for the levels of existence to become
complete, for although the cosmos was manifest in pre-
eternity through His name the All-Encompassing, it did not
become manifest in space except through the names and
attributes. The names breathed out, and their properties
became manifest through the essence of love. The Real
directed a single gaze of love towards that stillness, and it
was set into motion. Motion is love which grew in
multiplicity from the configuration of the circles of yearning
(al-ʿishq), which were generated from its center. Flowers
have many colors, though they are nourished by the same
water.
It is for this reason that all the forms in the realm of being
are connected by love that flows between them. Al-
Muṣṭafā ‫ ﷺ‬said, “The believer is the mirror of his
brother.”124 Every form loves its sister because of the love
that flows in it. This is as the Shaykh of our Shaykhs, Sayyidi
Aḥmad al- ʿAlawī, God be pleased with him, said in a poem,
There is no manifestation-site in the cosmos
Except that its secret is loved by another, even a grain of
sand.
However, these things can be witnessed only by one whose
heart is filled with the Light of the Real. Now since the
names still continue to exhale this breath, the motion is
perpetual, and the love goes on flowing, and the sites of
cosmic manifestation alternate between effacement and
affirmation (maḥw and ithbāt). The Beloved ‫ ﷺ‬alluded to
this name-breathing when he said, “I feel the breath of the
All-Merciful coming from Yemen.”125 So the Helpers (Ansār)
were the breath of the All-Merciful, as though the name of
the All-Merciful breathed out the nature of their kind. The
meaning of breathing (tanaffus) here is to bring out and
manifest what one has within. Through the Helpers, God
blew strife and tribulation away from the Emigrants
(Muhājirūn), as though the breaths of the Helpers were
connected to the name of the All-Merciful and they became
the locus of the divine mercy (raḥamūt).
Dear servants of God, when one of the names of the Real
comes to reside in the heart, its luminosity flows through the
entirety of the body, so that when that body breathes, it
breathes through that name. This is why the breath of created
being is of tremendous importance. Sayyidunā ʿAlī, may God
ennoble his face, said, “When the knower of God speaks, we
recognize him instantly.” That is to say, when he breathes
and the warmth of his breath and the circles of air come out,
we recognize him at once by virtue of his breath. We know
whether he is a man molded by the divine mercy (Raḥmānī)
or not. We know whether he is a person of elevation or
lowliness. ʿAlī went on: “And if he remains silent, we
recognize him by the end of the day,” by virtue of observing
his outward actions, because the outward speaks to the
inward.
Now when the conscience (sarīra) of the gnostic becomes
pure, his heart becomes a mirror for the disclosures of the
names of the Real. He exhales breaths that are pure, spiritual,
and elevated. That is why the Beloved ‫ ﷺ‬said of his noble
Companions, may God be pleased with all of them, “My
Companions are like the stars: whichever one you follow,
you shall be guided.”126 This is because when the
Muḥammadan sun reflected upon them, their hearts became
stars and their bodily limbs took on the fragrance of the lights
of following him, and their breaths were purified because
they issued from the root of the luminous Primordial tree.
The Light of al-Muṣṭafā ‫ ﷺ‬purifies animalistic hearts, so
that the warmth of the in-blown spirit is emitted from them,
and they exhibit Adamic sciences and Muḥammadan inner
secrets that would dazzle anyone possessed of intellect. Such
are the possessors of the star-breath (al-nafas al-najmī).
Consider how Sayyidunā Adam, peace be upon him,
learned all the names through the in-blowing of the spirit, and
when he exhaled he exhibited sciences and gnostic teachings.
As for the heedless one, his breaths are lowly, the garb of his
lower self evident upon them as they are emitted. This is why
a warning was issued to the people of heedlessness, lest they
be among those about whom the Messenger of God ‫ﷺ‬
said, “A man may utter a word that angers God, thinking
nothing of it, and be condemned to Hell for it.”127
So chose a Path for yourself and for your breath.128 You can
be an Adamic human being by virtue of the blowing of the
spirit, which occurs when the properties of the spirit flow
through the entirety of your body, such that your earth is
changed to other than the earth,129 and you come to realize
the essence of love described in the Sacred Hadith,
“My servant ceases not to draw near unto Me with
supererogatory devotions until I love him; and when I love
him, I become the hearing with which he hears, the seeing
with which he sees, the hand with which he holds, and the
foot with which he walks. If he asks Me, I will surely give
him; and if he seeks refuge with Me, I will surely give him
refuge.”130
With this, you will be dominated by the Breath of the All-
Merciful.
That is one Path; the other is for you to become a bestial
human being by virtue of the dominance of your bestial body,
so that the influence of the spirit weakens within you. With
that, you will become ignorant of your reality, and you will
not draw out the treasure that is buried within you. You are a
composed book, a written history: the book of your life, is a
record of all of your deeds, and all your movements, and all
the words that issue from you. It is a record of your breaths,
which issue from the warmth of the spirit. This breath issues
from the star of caprice (hawā) in the heart, and then is
exhaled so that it is loosened upon the tongue, and the tongue
is set into motion and manifests all manner of wondrous
sciences. So examine the nature of the star that has been sent
down into your heart. Is it the star of the Companions, or a
hellish base star from the depths of the devil? This breath is
your reality.
Know too that the nobility of the place from which breaths
are exhaled determines the nobility of the place where they
arrive. This is because God made the mouth a symbolic
reflection of the mansions of the moon, and so placed in it
fourteen teeth above and fourteen below, so that it resembled
the setting-places of the stars (mawāqiʿ al-nujūm).131 The
tongue is set into motion between above and below,
following the shape of the Lām of Love or the Singular Alif,
according to your aptitude. When you are silent, you are in a
state of stillness; but when the Real directs a gaze of
inwardness towards you, your tongue is set into motion and
your speech emerges in a manner commensurate with that
gaze. Thus if He gazes at you with the Hāʾ of Identity, you
will speak of annihilation and its properties, while if He
gazes at you with the Lām of Love, you will speak of the
centrality of al-Muṣṭafā ‫ﷺ‬. Your words will differ
according to the name with which He gazes upon you. This is
specific to the people of gnosis. As for the common
believers, their speech does not surpass the level of the lower
self. The people of gnosis have a share in the secret of “I
become the tongue by which he speaks,” from the
aforementioned Sacred Hadith. Their speech is from the
Real, through the Real, and to the Real. This is why from the
warmth of their spirits are expressed words which continue to
be attributed to them generation after generation, such as
their poems and their teachings, because they are connected
to the Everlasting (al-Bāqī). As for the speech of the heedless
folk, nothing remains of it because it is a fiery coal from the
touch of the devil.
So rectify yourself, may God have mercy on you. Rectify
your heart so that you may be graced with a breath of the All-
Merciful. But if you think that your worth is tied to your
status, your wealth, your leadership or your worldly
knowledge, you are delusional; for you are a thing of
annihilation, bereft of existence. You must forget the lower
world that is passing away, and be a servant of the
Everlasting, the Beginningless. Whether you like it or not,
and whether you know it or not, your breaths are all nothing
but movements of love. The secret and the riddle, however,
lies in the extent of its force, power and manifestation,
because all possibilities come to manifest through the Breath
of love. There is nothing but the love that flows through the
breath of the All-Merciful; yet you are blind, and do not see.
Seek the warmth of the spirit, the passionate love (ʿishq) of
God, for the registry of words in the scrolls of the hearts
differs from person to person. For some, they are written with
letters of Light. For others, they are written with letters of the
shadow of Light. The highest and most sublime of the
luminous letters are the letters of the all-encompassing name
Allāh, because the pronunciation of it issues from God and to
God. Whenever you invoke His all-encompassing name, you
inscribe sublime letters in your book. As for the all-
encompassing name in its true reality, neither angel nor any
other being can inscribe its reality nor its secrets. How can an
ocean with no beginning or end be confined to writing?
If you understood the reality of breath, you would know
that it was through the breathing of Adam that humanity
became manifest, and that his breath is a part of the universal
all-encompassing soul, the soul that was given the all-
encompassing words, may God’s peace and blessing be upon
their possessor. His breaths continue to be manifested, and to
manifest, for his words bear the secret of “Be!” (Kun). Do
you not see how He decreed for one people to be in Hell, and
so they died in a state of unbelief, and decreed for another to
be in Paradise, so they died in a state of faith? Do you not see
how he said “Be Abū Dharr,” and indeed it was him?132 If
you do not understand this, I will illustrate it for you with a
tangible example which you will certainly recognize and not
deny: From time to time, you hear about scientific
discoveries that were only made in the age of technology, yet
the Prophet spoke about them fourteen centuries ago. That is
because his words are not like other words: He does not
speak out of his whims; it is nothing but revelation being
revealed.133
14. The Station of Interpretation (Maqām
al-Taʿbīr)
Mudhākara from the Friday
Gathering of 2nd Dhū al-Qaʿda 1435 / August 29th 2014

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm

The Mūsā-presence continues to shade us with its teachings
and shower us with its secrets. In reality, the wayfarer does
not complete the study of the presences of the Prophets until
he studies them through experiential tasting, through the
levels of the all-encompassing names in their entirety. Yet he
could never give them their rightful due. And since we have
arrived through the Hāʾ-reading to contact with the Alif, we
shall now speak at this level through the Mūsā-presence
about the station of interpretation (taʿbīr). So let us begin,
with God’s aid.
The station of the Hidden Alif at the first reading of the Hāʾ
of Identity is divided into the upper half, which pertains to
Messengerhood, and the other half, which pertains to
Prophethood. What remains is the isthmus-line of Sainthood,
as illustrated below.

So the wayfarer enters into the gnostic sciences through the

reading of the Name in the mode of witnessing, in
accordance with the spirit of, Read in the Name of your
Lord.134 He reads in the Name of his Lord, which is the
divine Name Allāh, through the door of the Hāʾ where the
secret of Identity is unveiled to him. Then he ascends until
the Muḥammadan center becomes manifest to him and he
disappears into it, until the Lām of Gnosis is disclosed to him.
Then he is honored with the prostration of the spirit after he
realizes the prostration of the heart in the first and second
secrets of our Path, and he relinquishes all his claims to
power, strength, taste or state, and he sees in himself nothing
but deficiency. Then he ascends to the station of union,
where he reads the empty space between the Lām of Gnosis
and the Singular Alif of the divine Name Allāh.
This occurs when the beauty of the most beautiful names
visits him and brings him close to its secrets. Then he is taken
to the station of separation, where neither name, allusion or
attribute attaches to him, and he journeys in the midst of
separation until the breeze of union manifests to him through
the Hidden Alifs, and he becomes attached to them until he
comes into contact with the Alif where the isthmus of
Sainthood is located, and he begins to journey therein.
Prior to this point, he was only combating the darkness of
his lower self, erasing the forms of created things from his
heart, and discovering the traps of Iblīs in order to avoid
them. At this station, the station of the Hidden Alif, the
gnostic arrives at the secret of interpretation and acquires the
ability to interpret the exalted sciences on his outward tongue
in such a way that everyone else understands. Before arriving
at this station, his interpretation could oscillate between truth
and error.
Now before achieving mastery (tamakkun) of the station of
interpretation, when the wayfarer speaks of a matter of the
unseen, that matter will remain a mystery to the listener
because he has not seen what that wayfarer has seen. This is
because the wayfarer is not able to provide the necessary
interpretation. However, when he comes into contact with the
Alif, he learns this by means of the descent of the subtle
graces of the prophets into his heart; for “the knowers are the
heirs of the Prophets.”135 The knowers of God are the vessels
of prophetic knowledge, and so their tongues are worthy of
conveying their teachings by the grace of the spiritual
inheritance that passed from the Prophets into their hearts.
This is because the ones who have the ability to make
manifest hidden sciences in tangible forms are the Prophets.
They are the ones who take the sublime sciences and bring
them down to rest of creation, speaking with the outward
tongue in a way that everyone is able to understand.
Everyone takes from them in the measure of their ability,
their station, their state and their experiential taste.
God says regarding the outward tongue of the Prophets that
is understandable to everyone, We never sent a messenger
except with the tongue of his people.136 The companions,
may God be pleased with them, understood the intended
meaning of the words because it was in their own tongue. Yet
there remained a variety of preparednesses in their hearts,
which differed from companion to companion in accordance
with the Light of gnosis of God that resided in their hearts.
This is why the Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬said to them, alluding to their
sanctity, “Let the one who is present pass it on to the one
who is absent.”137 The outward tongue is one and the same,
but some understand it well enough to convey it exactly as
they heard it from al-Muṣṭafā ‫ ﷺ‬to those who did not hear
it. Then there are others who, in addition to understanding it,
add another meaning as well. For such people, “the one who
is present” takes on another meaning in the tongue of the
elect, as follows: “O you who have pierced through
separation and union, and joined together upon the
Muḥammadan Alif, and thus witnessed what others have not,
convey it to them, so they may join the people of witnessing
(ahl al-shuhūd).”
 So these companions, may God be pleased with them, are
the centers, the stars that inherited the teachings of the sun of
Prophethood. They were possessors of knowledge and
understanding, and they drew from the Hidden Alif what they
were able to draw, and conveyed it to those who were absent.
In like manner, the one who attains that station among the
saints (awliyāʾ) of his community, and receives authorization
to interpret what has been unveiled to him, is also included in
this prophetic hadith.
Now when the messengers addressed the common
believers, they would be attentive to their station so they
could understand them, for they knew that the elect would
understand even their slightest gestures and allusions.
Consider how the Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬used to divide the spoils in
accordance with the knowledge, gnosis, love and resignation
that had settled in the hearts of the companions. Thus he
would give to the commoners rather than the elect. You
would find him giving to them in order to win over their
hearts, and out of fear for them lest they be cast into Hell if
they disrespected the prophetic presence, whether outwardly
or inwardly, such as the one who said to the Beloved ‫ﷺ‬,
“This division of spoils was not done purely for the sake of
God”—God forbid! So he ‫ ﷺ‬would give to them in order
to win their hearts over to Islam. For this reason, he would
give the folk of true faith among the Emigrants and Helpers
less than what he would give others. The same goes for the
division of knowledge: he would speak in a way that was
understandable to everyone, but it would descend into each
individual’s heart according to the degrees of the veils he had
pierced through. This is why there was a hierarchy among the
companions with regard to their knowledge and
understanding, may God be pleased with them all.
Herein lies a bewildering and wondrous matter: a
companion could hear only a few words from the Master of
prophets and messengers ‫ﷺ‬, and that would be enough for
him to taste all of the subtle teachings hidden within them.
This is why it has come down to us that the companions
would attain experiential taste from every movement, speech
and allusion that issued from the pure prophetic presence.
They went even further than that—consider how Sayyidunā
ʿAbdullāh b. ʿUmar, God be pleased with him, would make
his camel walk two circles over the place where the camel of
the Beloved ‫ ﷺ‬circled. Or consider how al-Muṣṭafā ‫ﷺ‬
was once praying when he reached out his blessed hand in
front of him to pick a bunch of grapes. Look for the
companion who asked him when he ‫ ﷺ‬reached out his
hand, if you have any Light.
The same thing happens in our Path: there are some to
whom the Real gives much outward provision, and they are
happy with it, but when it decreases they become upset. Then
there are others who have bad etiquette inwardly when they
notice that the world has opened its doors to someone else
but closed its doors to him. This is why we tell you that the
purpose of the Path is to rectify one’s inward state. The Path
guides you to the provision that does not run out. So do not
turn towards anything but your goal and your desire. We say
one thing, in one gathering, but each person takes from it
according to the measure of their aptitude and luminosity.
Before we speak, we have already sent down the meanings of
our words into the hearts of our disciples as disclosures,
visions, acts and properties. Whoever’s preparedness and
presence are strong enough will receive them. And none
receives it but one who is immensely fortunate,138 whose
heart is connected to our heart, so that some of what is
inscribed in ours is reflected in the mirror of his.
 15. The Inheritance of the Prophets
(mīrāth al-anbiyāʾ)
Mudhākara from the Friday
Gathering of 9th Dhū l-Qaʿda 1435 / September 5th 2014

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm

Know, dear travelers to the presence of the Real, that the
awesome Muḥammadan presence descended into the Mosaic
manifestation-site and thereby the knowledge of the Hidden
Alif was completed at this presence just as it was completed
in the other presences. The saints of the blessed
Muḥammadan nation thus have a share of this knowledge
through their prophetic inheritance. They are heirs of the
prophetic sciences because they occupy the center of the
Hidden Alif. Arriving into contact with the Alif by reading the
all-encompassing name is the beginning of Sainthood. Prior
to that, the wayfarer is striving to purify the soul by
disregarding it and realizing annihilation. God alludes to this
inheritance in the verse: We bequeathed the Book to those
of Our servants whom We had chosen.139 Those are the
true heirs who inherit divine knowledge. When God mentions
the “scholars” (ʿulamāʾ) in His Holy Book, they are the
people of divine knowledge who have realized the honor of
the possessive relationship expressed by the words Our
servants. Do not imagine that knowledge is a line that is
inscribed in the heart or the mind through thoughts, and thus
you become a scholar-saint. The Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬said: “The
scholars are lamps upon the earth, vicegerents of the
prophets, my heirs, and the heirs of the prophets.”140 The
scholars are the lamps of the earth because their hearts are
luminous; they are a clear Path whose night is as bright as its
day; heirs of the prophets by virtue of the descent of subtle
graces upon their hearts.
The knowledge of al-Muṣṭafā ‫ ﷺ‬is a Light that God casts
into the heart of whomever He wills among his servants.
Through it, He removes the darkness of nonexistence, and
clothes him with the robe of election. When he speaks, his
speech is through God; and what he hears is from God.
Consider how Sayyidunā ʿUmar, God be pleased with him,
said: “Draw near to the mouths of the obedient, and listen to
what they say, for truthful things are disclosed to them.” That
is on account of their hearts’ proximity to God. The more a
heart gains proximity to God, the more the contentions of evil
pass away, and the Light of truth-unveiling becomes fuller
and stronger. The more distant it is from God, the more
contentions amass, and the weaker his Light of truth-
unveiling becomes. For knowledge is a Light that God casts
into the heart, through which the servant distinguishes
between truth and falsehood. Luminous knowledge possesses
a force that displays its treasures upon the mouth. This is why
Imām Mālik said: “Knowledge is not through the abundance
of reports. Rather, knowledge is a Light that God places in
the heart.” So look at what is in your heart? Do not say: “how
can I see it?” Close your eyes and you will see it; and if you
do not find anything, then search for someone who will cast a
Light upon the darkness of your heart, so that you may
become among the people of Light, and begin your Path
toward the inheritance of the Beloved ‫ﷺ‬.
On his journey toward this knowledge, the wayfarer to God
begins by entering into the Hāʾ of the Name in order to free
himself from the darkness of the lower self. When he comes
into contact with the Alif, he attains the knowledge of the
prophets. He enters into contact with the Alif through a
luminous handful that bestows upon him the power of
expression. For the prophets, peace be upon them, used to
address the nations through the outward tongue that was
understood by all people. But behind every word there is an
intangible meaning and a delicate allusion that is only
understood by the elite. Thus God tells us that Sayyidunā
Mūsā said: So I fled from you when I was afraid of you,141
though with respect to the revealed Law, fear of other than
God is blameworthy, as God says: That is only Satan,
sowing fear of his friends. So fear them not, but fear Me,
if you are believers.142 This means that if you only fear God,
then you are a believer. Far be it for the prophets and their
heirs to fear anyone along with God, for their hearts witness
none but Him. However, God gave them an outward tongue,
as we said, so that all people may take from them. For the
outward expresses a partial manifestation-site of the inward,
but the one whom God gives knowledge understands the
intended meaning and knows that the inward is identical to
the outward. Thus he draws from his outward to his inward,
and from his inward to his outward.
 16. The Shade of Lordship (ẓill al-
rubūbiyya)
Mudhākara from the Friday
Gathering of 9th Dhū al-Qaʿda 1435 / 5th of September 2014

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm

Know, may God illuminate your heart with His holy Light,
that entering into the Hidden Alif allows the knower of God
to witness the realities just as they are in their purity. By
God’s grace, we have already spoken a little about
experiential tasting of the Hidden Alif. To complete what we
started, it remains for us to further illuminate this presence by
lifting the veil from some of the subtle graces of God’s
words, So he watered their flocks for them, then turned
toward the shade and said “My Lord, truly I am in need
of any good that Thou may send down upon me”.143
So we say, depending on God, that the greatest of the holy
visions that dominated Sayyidunā Mūsā is the witnessing-site
of lordship by virtue of his witnessing the Lights of the name
the Lord (al-Rabb). He would very often turn to this name, as
is evident in the Holy Book. One such instance was when he
watered the flocks of the daughters of Sayyidunā Shuʿayb,
peace be upon him, then withdrew into the shade by virtue of
the holy witnessing of the disclosures of lordship, for the
shade symbolized how he witnessed his own servanthood
before the lordship of the Real. This is what the name of the
Lord (al-Rabb) implies. Or you might say he withdrew into
the shade where he could witness his nonexistence before the
existence of the Real. The shade represents the reality of
possibility, which can be witnessed though it does not exist.
Glory be to the One who is Dominant over His servants! Or
you might say that when he, peace be upon him, attained
realization of his attributes and his neediness, God gave him
shelter beneath the shade of His Holiness, and there he found
repose in supplication, and said, My Lord truly I am in
need of any good that Thou may send down upon me.144
With this, he displayed his perfect neediness upon witnessing
the divine perfection. Note that he attributed his neediness to
the good, even though in truth one is only in need of God.
The difference is that these words sprang from his perfect
realization; he witnessed the Lights of truth in the
manifestation-sites of creation, and witnessed the One
through which all things are sustained, so that all the other
things he saw were as if nonexistent.
Some Qurʾān commentaries relate that with this
supplication he was complaining of hunger, which leads us to
another subtle point of discussion, namely that he was one of
those in the station of with-ness (ʿindiyya), which is attained
by every servant who carries the supreme Name of God
through experiential tasting and witnessing. This station is
alluded to in the Sacred Hadith that tells of how God will say
on the Day of Resurrection,
“O child of Adam, I was sick but you did not visit Me. He
will say, “Lord, how could I visit you when you are the Lord
of the worlds?” He will reply, “Did you not know that my
servant so-and-so was sick, but you did not visit him? Did
you not know that had you visited him, you would have
found Me with him? O child of Adam, I asked you for food,
but you did not feed Me.” He will say, “Lord, how could I
feed You when You are the Lord of the worlds?” God will
respond, “Did you not know that My servant so-and-so asked
you for food, but you did not give it to him? Did you not
know that had you fed him, you would have found that with
Me? O child of Adam, I asked you for water, but you did not
give me water.” He will say, “Lord, how could I give You
water when You are the Lord of the worlds?” He will say,
“My servant so-and-so asked you for water, but you did not
give it to him. Did you not know that had you given him
water, you would have found that with Me?”145
This is why when Sayyidunā Shuʿayb, peace be upon him,
heard about the supplication of Sayyidunā Mūsā from his
daughters, he said, “He wants food.” He concealed in his
heart what he knew of the innermost secret that descended
through the Light of those words. He knew of the inner state
(bāṭin) of Mūsā, while his daughters knew of his outer state
because they had seen his strength and trustworthiness. God
tells us that they said, O father, hire him. Surely the best
man you can hire is the strong, the trustworthy.146
By virtue of Sainthood, everyone who attains realization of
the names of the Real inwardly will manifest the beautiful
perfections of character and noble traits outwardly on his
limbs. When the Real desires good for His servant, He causes
him to dwell on the earth of servanthood upon the carpet of
neediness. This is why all those wayfarers who have reached
the Lām of Love or the Lām of Constriction, and upon whom
His Lights have been disclosed and His secrets cast—all such
wayfarers are in a state of total neediness, so that they see
nothing but God’s bounty upon them, and stake no claim in
the matter for themselves. When they clothe themselves in
acts of obedience, they feel as though they are foreigners in
that clothing. When they receive gifts, they do not let those
gifts distract them from witnessing the Giver. This is the
meaning of courtesy (adab), the goodly earth from which
beautiful character traits grow. It has been said that the
Presence of the All-Holy has sworn that the people of the
lower self shall not enter it, meaning those who attribute
importance and value to themselves, thus assuming the
character traits of Iblīs, who said, I am better than him.147
That way lies destruction and perdition.
Now Sayyidunā Mūsā displayed three characteristics to the
daughters of Sayyidunā Shuʿayb: strength when he lifted the
large rock that was placed over the well, trustworthiness
when he completed his work in the most perfect manner and
without turning to the daughters of Shuʿayb, and nobility and
chivalry in how he did not ask for a wage in return for
watering their flock even though he was in need of food. For
this reason when Sayyidunā Mūsā, after having met with
Sayyidunā al-Khiḍr, suggested that he take payment for
rebuilding the wall, Sayyidunā al-Khiḍr refused to do so in
order to remind him of how he had watered the flocks of the
daughters of Sayyidunā Shuʿayb without asking for payment
from them. It was as though al-Khiḍr met Mūsā with a
reflection of his own past deeds. He punctured the ship as an
allusion to the ark (tābūt) in which Mūsā was placed as a
young child, and slew the youth as an allusion to how Mūsā
slew Egyptian, and built the wall without any payment as an
allusion to what we have just described. Similarly, the shaykh
gives the wayfarer allusions that help him recall his past, for
darkness is none other than the sum total of the murīd’s past,
and Light serves as a warning and alerts you so you do not
forget your past and thereby fall from the station of gratitude.
The wayfarer must have a beautified vision accompanied
by repentance that is sincere. The one who does not forget his
past can easily accept everything that is directed at him from
his shaykh, in contrast to the one who does not recall his past
and his previous state of heedlessness, forgetting that it was
only through the grace of God that he was brought out from
the darkness into the Light and from heedlessness into
wakefulness. The one who is in such a state of heedlessness
will be surprised by the methods of training (tarbiyya) that
the shaykh utilizes on him. You find him asking for more
before it is time, and belittling what he has been given,
without realizing that he is belittling God’s bounty upon him.
The one who is in this state will continue to regress and grow
ever more distant until he repents. When he does repent, he
will find that all of the shaykh’s directives are good for him,
whether he gives or withholds, and whether he treats him
with beauty or majesty.
As for the disciple who finds fault with his shaykh, he
should know that he is finding fault with none other than
himself, for the shaykh is the mirror of the disciple: each one
sees his own state in him. In order to avoid being deluded by
what he witnesses while inwardly critiquing the shaykh, the
disciple should know that the shaykh of training can be either
for him or against him, and so he ought to beware. He should
know that the Light that enters the heart can be either for him
or against him. If it is for him, he stands firm in obedience
and avoids contradiction, with surrender and love, and so the
Light will grow within him until it covers him completely
and no trace or movement of him remains except through the
Light. If the Light is against him, it enters his heart and finds
his limbs still in a state of disobedience without repentance,
and on top of that adds censure and criticism of things he has
no knowledge of. In such a case, the Light will remain in his
heart for one full year—one full celestial revolution—and
then return whence it came. That is right, it will return to the
heart of his shaykh, because the disciple did not give it its
rightful due, nor measure it by its true worth.
Know also that we accept everyone who comes to us with a
desire to know his Maker, regardless of whether they are
lying or truthful. In the case of the liar, we pray that God
realizes sincerity in him so that he may benefit, and we
endeavor to help him return to the rightful Path, lest he be
among those who perish. As for the sincere one, we pray for
God to make him firm in his sincerity, and we lead him on a
journey through the worlds of Light. For if Light does not
find a righteous locus, it departs. So clean out your hearts,
God have mercy on you, through right intention, which is to
seek the Face of God and nothing else, so that when the Light
enters into the heart it obliterates all other than God from its
field of vision.
Let us return to the subject at hand. The encounter of
Sayyidunā Mūsā with al-Khiḍr contains many benefits,
subtleties and realities that can assist every seeker of the Face
of God. It is not a story that you read in passing without
contemplating. The Messenger ‫ ﷺ‬said, “God have mercy
upon us and upon Mūsā! Had he been patient with his
companion, he would have seen marvelous marvels. But he
said, ‘If I ask you about another thing after this, keep my
company no longer.’”148 Because he ‫ ﷺ‬knew the wonders
that al-Khiḍr would have unveiled for Mūsā, and only wished
that Mūsā had been more patient with him out his ‫ ﷺ‬eager
desire to see benefit for all God’s servants. We also learn
from the hadith that Sayyidunā Mūsā was the one who
withdrew from the companionship of al-Khiḍr when he said,
“Do not be my companion;” for when prophets make a
statement, they adhere to what they say.
Let us conclude this discourse (mudhākara) by mentioning
a vision that was sent down into the heart of one of the
fuqarāʾ. When the shaykh speaks about one of the sciences or
presences, the spiritual assistance descends into the hearts of
his students with the pure meanings, subtle graces and
realities of which he speaks. For this reason, those among
you who are prepared witness these presences and receive
them from the presence of the Shaykh. Now this vision
descended into the heart of Aḥmad al-Hibrī, may God protect
him.149 Aḥmad al-Hibrī had a vision of Sayyidunā Yūsuf,
peace be upon him, who told him, “Go to the presence of
Mūsā, do not come with me.” So when he went to the
presence of Mūsā, a Light emitted from his noble heart and
headed towards the heart of the al-Hibrī, and he began to
circumambulate in it proclaiming God’s greatness, until it
covered him entirely. Then he stopped seeing Sayyidunā
Mūsā, peace be upon him, as if that Light had driven him far
away. Then he recalled what Sayyidunā Yūsuf had told him,
and he returned to the presence of Mūsā, but this time from
behind not from the front, and followed him. This is the end
of the vision.
So we are still in the Mūsā-presence. The disciple saw the
Prophet of God Mūsā, and had we been in the presence of
another Prophet, he would have seen that Prophet, may God
bless all of them. He saw Sayyidunā Yūsuf, who represented
the station of Prophethood, and he saw Sayyidunā Mūsā, who
represented the station of Messengerhood, and he saw
himself between the two, oscillating between one and the
other, representing the station of Sainthood. When the Light
came out of the heart of Sayyidunā Mūsā and entered into the
heart of the faqīr, this represented drawing assistance from
the wellspring of Messengerhood and Prophethood. The way
it covered his body with Light until he no longer saw
Sayyidunā Mūsā represented the transcendent meaning of
what Sayyidī ʿAbd Salām Ibn Mashīsh said concerning the
all-encompassing Muḥammadan presence, “Dear God, he is
your all-encompassing secret pointing to You, and your
supreme veil standing for You before You.”
We can summarize what we have said here with the
following illustration of the reading of the Hidden Alif
through the Hāʾ-reading in the levels of the all-encompassing
Name, through the Mūsā-presence.
 So Sainthood draws its isthmus-nature at the station of the
Alif, while Prophethood and Messengerhood divide the Alif
into two, as shown here, due to their tremendous importance.
When the wayfarer arrives at the station of the isthmus of
sainthood in the Hidden Alif through experiential tasting, he
draws his knowledge from that prophetic inheritance,
because the knowers of God are the heirs of the Prophets in
words, deeds and states. They receive according to the
measure of their preparedness through the descents of the
subtle prophetic graces from the prophet or messenger unto
the heart of the saint. Sainthood widens and expands as it
absorbs knowledge, as illustrated below.

Thus the circle of Sainthood grows as it receives

knowledge, until it includes the entire Name. May God
enable us and you to attain realization, through His love and
good pleasure, and may He bless Sayyidunā Muḥammad and
his family and companions and give them abundant peace.
 17. The Meeting of the Two Seas
(Majmaʿ al-Baḥrayn)
Mudhākara from the Friday
Gathering of 16th Dhū al-Qaʿda 1435 / 12th September 2014

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm

Our blessed Messenger ‫ ﷺ‬said about Sayyidunā Mūsā
and al-Khiḍr ‫ﷺ‬, “God have mercy upon us and upon
Mūsā! Had he been patient with his companion, he would
have seen marvelous marvels. But he said, ‘If I ask you
about another thing after this, keep my company no
longer.’”150 Sayyidunā Mūsā, peace be upon him, marveled
at everything that Sayyidunā al-Khiḍr showed him, namely
making a hole in the ship, slaying the youth and building the
wall. These three levels that al-Khiḍr displayed are the
foundational principles of wayfaring to God: it is necessary
to puncture a hole through the ship of one’s habits, to slay the
youth of caprice and the lower self, in order to obtain the
treasure that is stored within you. “The one who know
himself knows his Lord.” Then one must build the wall, so
that the secret is not manifest to anyone other than those who
are qualified for it. This is why Sayyidunā Mūsā was placed
in the company of Sayyidunā al-Khiḍr by divine command;
for it was God who purified al-Khiḍr for the sake of his
Confidant, as He says, There they found one of Our
servants whom we had granted mercy from Us, and
taught him knowledge from Our presence.151 Despite this
lordly purification of al-Khiḍr, it was Sayyidunā Mūsā who
left the company of al-Khiḍr after he had broken the terms
they had agreed upon. It is necessary and obligatory that
prophets fulfill their terms, and al-Khiḍr had stipulated that
Mūsā follow him without asking any questions. So after
passing through those three stages, the separation came, and
in reality it was Sayyidunā Mūsā who asked for the
separation when he said, “Keep my company no longer.”
Now al-Khiḍr knew that Mūsā was a messenger sent by
God to his people, for it is narrated that when he arrived at
Sayyidunā al-Khiḍr, Mūsā said, “Peace be upon you,” and he
replied, “And upon you be peace, O Prophet of the Children
of Isrāʾīl.” Then Mūsā said, “Who told you of my identity?”
He replied, “The One who sent you to me.” Thus, each of
them had knowledge that the other did not.
So the two seas met: the sea of messenger-knowledge (ʿilm
risālī) in the form of Sayyidunā Mūsā, and the sea of God-
given knowledge (ʿilm ladunī) in the form of Sayyidunā al-
Khiḍr. That was the meeting of the two seas where they came
together. Sayyidunā al-Khiḍr displayed his wonders while
observing the proper courtesy that is due to the prophets.
Thus, he would clarify that which was beneficial to the
Confidant of God, who had been commanded to follow him.
Together they constituted the perfection that occurs through
knowledge of God within the circle of Messengerhood and
the circle of Sainthood. This is why they never came together
again after that. Note also that the Sainthood of a saint is
lesser than that of a prophet. The properties of
Messengerhood come to an end with the end of the
herebelow, because the hereafter is an abode of recompense
alone, and there will be no more work there. Those who
follow the messengers in the herebelow will be among the
felicitous in the hereafter, while those who do not will not be,
and their fate will rest with God. As for the properties of
Sainthood, they endure both in the herebelow and the
hereafter, because Sainthood is an ascent through the
knowledge of God, and knowledge of God has no end,
whether in this life or the next.
 Sayyidunā Mūsā was a Hidden Alif in his essence, and by
virtue of his Messengerhood he claimed the upper half of the
Alif above the isthmus of Sainthood, while by virtue of his
Prophethood he claimed the lower half as well, and by virtue
of his Sainthood he claimed the isthmus of the Alif. This is
why he used to carry a staff, as an allusion to the Hidden Alif.
Thus, by the authority of the Hidden Alif, he showed his
people the twelve springs, as God says, Then twelve springs
gushed forth from it.152 He quenched their thirsty hearts
with twelve letters corresponding to the letters of lā ilāha illā
Allāh, and each people knew their drinking place. The goodly
and exalted utterance of lā ilāha illā Allāh begins with the
letter of the spirit, Lā, representing the inability to know Him
and bewilderment in Him.
What follows is an illustration to clarify how the widening
of the circle of Sainthood within the Hidden Alif takes place,
through a reading from a different angle of the vision of the
faqīr who encountered the spirit-presences of Sayyidunā
Mūsā and Sayyidunā Yūsuf, as we discussed last week. Let
us draw the name as usual:

Now here is an illustration of how the circle of Sainthood

broadens in the Hidden Alif from the isthmus-dot in its
middle, broadening upwards and downwards.

The wayfarer ascends until he arrives at contact with the

Alif by virtue of the Hāʾ-reading, then settles in the isthmus-
point of Sainthood. The one who reaches this point must
build a wall, and once he has thoroughly built it, he will be
granted a Hidden Alif. As for arriving at the Primordial Alif,
that occurs after reading every letter of the divine name
through all ten readings.
 18. Pharaoh’s Question (Suʾāl Firʿawn)
Mudhākara from the Friday
Gathering of 8th Dhū al-Ḥijja 1435 / 3rd October 2014

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm

Dear wayfarer, may God grant you success, know that the
station of name-vicegerency or Adamic vicegerency is God’s
most noble gift to the elect members of the children of Adam,
and that the prophets, peace and blessings be upon them all,
used to ask God for outward vicegerency just as they had it
inwardly by virtue of their Sainthood. This is because they
knew that the rank of Messengerhood and Prophethood may
come with outward vicegerency, or may not. God tells us in
His Holy Book that Sayyidunā Mūsā said, alluding to the
blessings God had granted him, My Lord granted me
authority and placed me among the Messengers.153 His
words My Lord granted me authority alludes to
vicegerency, while and placed me among the Messengers
alludes to his Messengerhood.
The vicegerent on behalf of God is endowed with the
sword, resolve, Sainthood and authority in outward and
inward matters through all the levels of the religion. As for
the messenger, this is not necessarily so, for not every
messenger is a vicegerent. His only task is to deliver the
message with which he was sent. God says, Those who
convey God’s messages and fear Him, and fear none but
God; and God suffices as a reckoner.154 However, if he
carries a sword then he is a vicegerent messenger. Sayyidunā
Ibrāhīm, peace be upon him, also requested this vicegerency
before him when he said, as God tells us, My Lord, grant
me authority and bind me to the righteous.155
 In the station of Sainthood there are those who are
appointed as vicegerents on earth, and also those who only
have inward vicegerency. When common people hear the
words “messenger” or “prophet,” may peace and blessings be
upon them all, they tend to see them as possessing all of these
stations and levels, but in fact the one in whom all of them
were combined was the all-encompassing essence who was
granted the all-encompassing words, our Prophet
Muḥammad ‫ﷺ‬.
As for the Pharaoh’s question to Sayyidunā Mūsā, peace be
upon him, concerning the Lord of the worlds, it was not
posed out of ignorance of the rank of Lordship. Moreover, he
made his claim to divinity despite knowing inwardly that he
was neither a god nor a messenger. The clearest evidence of
this was the occasion when his people came to him
complaining that the Nile had dried out and asking him to
make it flow again. He promised them that the next morning
he would go out to see the Nile and to work to restore its
flow. That night, that matter kept him awake, and he tossed
and turned not knowing what to do or how to get out of it. He
had finally met his match, though he had once believed that
there was nothing he could not do. The next morning, the
people gathered to see how Pharaoh would cause the great
Nile to flow once more. Hours passed and they waited, until
finally he came out in all his adornment with his entourage of
servants, throne-bearers, doctors, poets, sages, astrologers,
dream-interpreters and all the rest. When they arrived at the
bank of the Nile, he stood there pondering, and then noticed a
spot where the reeds had grown tall, and commanded his
throne-bearers to go there. Then he descended from his
throne and ordered his entourage and guards to stay put, and
for no one to go into the reeds with him.
So he went in alone, and when he was sure that no one else
was there, he took off all his aristocratic garments,
adornments and jewels, and removed his sandals. Then he
stepped towards the Nile until his feet were in the mud, and
prostrated upon the earth and said to God, “O God, You
know that I know that there is no God but You, so cause the
Nile to flow!” So God responded to his prayer, and He
caused the Nile to flow. Nor should this be any cause to
marvel, for even Iblīs called out to God and God answered
his prayers: Iblīs said, “My Lord grant me respite until the
day they are resurrected.” He said, “Very well, thou art
among those granted respite, till the Day of the Moment
Known” .156
Thus Pharaoh’s motive behind his question to Sayyidunā
Mūsā was to test him, for of all people Pharaoh knew Mūsā
best. Whenever the story of Pharaoh and Mūsā is told, the
notion always comes to our minds that they were enemies,
because we only remember the time when Mūsā was sent to
Pharaoh’s people. We forget that Pharaoh was the one who
raised Mūsā in his own palace, and knew him well. So
Pharaoh tested Mūsā with his question in order to see
whether Sayyidunā Mūsā really knew God or was only
claiming to do so. Pharaoh knew that the messengers have a
lofty status when it comes to knowledge of God. Likewise,
he also posed the question in order to test the faith of the
others who were present.
So he said, And what is the Lord of the worlds157 Now
this is an impossible question to answer, because it inquires
after the very essence of the Real, which the created human
intellect cannot perceive at its core. Thus, Sayyidunā Mūsā
did not answer his question, nor did he say, “How can I
answer your question about the One who has no likeness?”
Pharaoh knew that his question had no answer, and he knew
that Sayyidunā Mūsā would not answer his question except
by referring to God’s attributes: Pharaoh said, “And what is
the Lord of the worlds?” He said, “The Lord of the
Heavens and the Earth and what is between them, would
that you were certain.”158 He responded only by referring to
God’s Lordship over the worlds, yet tucked within his answer
was an ingenious allusion to the innermost secret of the
Essence. If Pharaoh and those with him had pondered it, they
would have perceived the answer.
After contemplating the heavens and the earth, the servant
arrives at, You did not create this in vain, Glory be unto
You.159 With that he arrives at knowledge of Lordship, and
roams through nonexistence above in the heavens, and below
in the earth until he arrives at certainty (īqān): would that
you were certain. He roams with his inner vision, by the
Light of the Real, through all that has a beginning and an
end, in order to directly taste the transcendence of the One
who has no beginning or end. If numerals in mathematics are
infinite, what is one to say of the One who brought numerals
into existence? This explains the prophetic prohibition of
contemplating the Essence of God and the command to
contemplate His signs. The Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬said, “Contemplate
God’s graces; do not contemplate God.”160 Or another
narration, “Contemplate God’s creation; do not contemplate
God, lest you perish.” You would perish because the Essence
obliterates, effaces, extinguishes, bewilders and totally
annihilates. To contemplate creation is to contemplate the
attributes through the innermost secret of God’s absolute
sustenance after attaining realization through direct
witnessing of one’s own nonexistence. This is why God in
his Holy Book directs us to two Paths for attaining the
innermost secret of union and direct witnessing after tasting
the annihilation of created things, saying: We shall show
them Our signs upon the horizons and in themselves,
until it becomes clear to them that He is the Real.161
 Thus the easiest Path is to seek within the soul, because that
grants a stronger and more complete knowledge of God.
Within the soul the knower of God attains realization of what
is narrated in the tradition: “My earth and my heavens do not
encompass Me, but the heart of my believing servant
encompasses Me.” This knowledge, then, is built upon direct
witnessing of the levels of the singular name Allāh and the
discovery of its concealed secrets and realities.
As for the second Path, it is to seek in the horizons in order
to attain direct knowledge of the Real. This is a Path that has
many branches, and the furthest extent one can reach via this
Path is knowledge of the pure meaning and realities of the
name of al-Raḥmān. God says, al-Raḥmān mounts the
Throne.162
Both Paths require a nurturing training shaykh of inner
insight and direct knowledge of the stations and levels,
because from beginning to end it is a Path of experiential
tasting, not intellectual exercise. Relying upon the intellect
alone will not get you anywhere. This is assuming that you
stay upon the shores of safety; for most of the
anthropomorphism that creeps into the hearts of God’s
servants is caused by the equivocal terms mentioned in the
Holy Book which stand between necessity and possibility,
such that you imagine Him in a physical bodily form
whenever you hear such verses as, When your Lord comes
with the angels row upon row.163
The levels of human understanding differ, which is why
some people believe in the seven heavens, while others only
believe in what they see and directly witness. The hadith
about God descending to the lowest heaven is an allusion to
Lordship above, and at the same time it opens the door of
receptivity for the one who is incapable of visualizing the
existence of the seven heavens. In wayfaring, the more this
star shines in your heart, the more you will know that you are
among the people of the last third of the night. You are in
your entirety a night, and when the star of al-Muṣṭafā ‫ﷺ‬
arises in your heart, that is the last third of the night in which
the Real descends. When the Lord descends, He descends by
virtue of love in the first level of the heart. When that
happens, know that you are close to the sun gnosis, and that
your day is nigh.
 19. Mūsā’s Answer (Jawāb Mūsā)
Mudhākara from the Friday
Gathering of 16th Dhū al-Ḥijja 1435 / October 10th 2014

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm

Know, dear wayfarer, that Pharaoh was a man of
knowledge, which is why when he posed his question to
Sayyidunā Mūsā, peace be upon him, his intention was to
incapacitate him by asking him about the quintessence of the
Real, which cannot be expressed in word or by allusion. So
he said, And what is the Lord of the Worlds?.164 But the
Mūsā-wisdom answered him in a way that neither he nor
anyone else could refute, and so he responded to him by
reference to something he recognized by alluding to
relational Lordship; for the level of Lordship is receptive to
addition. Thus, he approached the answer from the higher
horizon of the heavens, and the lower horizon of the earth,
and spoke to him of the Lordship as it relates to elevation and
lowness, thus directing him towards the manifestation-sites in
the hope that he would recognize the Manifest therein. So he
said, He is the Lord of the heavens and the earth.165
Pharaoh knew what Mūsā was talking about, but he wanted
to display to his people that his argument was more powerful,
forgetting that the conclusive argument belongs to God.
Moreover, he had already known that Sayyidunā Mūsā would
not answer him concerning the reality of the Essence, but
would answer him concerning the manifestation-sites of the
names and attributes, for the Essence is unknowable except
through the sum total of the names and the attributes. Thus,
his answer contained allusions that would stir anyone in
whose heart is the Light of tawḥīd, which is why the
Confidant of God said, Would that you were certain.166
Certainty is one of the fruits of divine unveiling: if you
experience an unveiling, you will behold, through sheer faith
and the realities of certainty, the reality of the nonexistence
of all entities.
Pharaoh was one of the forms of misguidance, and his
knowledge was pure heresy because he did not obey and
follow the Prophet of his age. When he feared that his people
might understand the answer of Mūsā, he quickly responded
by saying to those around him, Do you not hear?167 as if to
make fun of the Confidant of God. Then after he had spoken
to him of Lordship as it relates to the horizons, he spoke of
Lordship as it relates to the soul: He said, “Your Lord and
the Lord of your fathers of old”;168 for a person may be
heedless of his surroundings, but he will certainly not be
heedless of his own soul and essence. It was as if he were
telling him that this name-disclosure, which is witnessed in
the outward manifestation-sites, is also occurring to you, for
were it not for these disclosures you would have no
manifestation, and you would not have been brought out of
nonexistence into possibility. Then Pharaoh responded,
speaking to his people, Truly your Messenger who has
been sent to you is possessed.169 With this, he wanted to
conceal the realities out of fear that they may become
obvious to those around him, and they may be brought out
from the idolatry of illusion to the Light of understanding. So
Mūsā the Confidant of God added, The Lord of the east and
the west and whatsoever is between them;170 for the sun
rises in the east and sets in the west, and if it were not for the
sun, everyone would remain in darkness. The allusion here is
as if he were saying: Were it not for the sun of the Essence,
the effect of the names and attributes would not have
manifested, because all is folded within it and is non-
manifest until the sun of God’s Exclusive Oneness becomes
manifest. Were it not for that sun, everything would remain
in the darkness of nonexistence. We said of this in a poem of
ours,
My sun has risen from my inner heart,
until it manifested the hidden aspects of my being.
He then said to Pharaoh and his people, If you
understand.171 Here, the language of his discourse changes:
after having been addressed to the presence of the heart
through unveiling that yields the fruit of certainty, now it is
addressed to the presence of the intellect, as if saying, “If you
are people of delimited intellect, not non-delimited heart.”
This is why it was appropriate for him to speak to them of the
heavens and the earth in the presence of the heart, because
that is the presence of non-delimitation. Then in the presence
of intellect, he delimited them to the east and the west
specifically, because that is the presence of delimitation.
Delimitation and non-delimitation are analogous to
immanence and transcendence, and neither can be detached
from the other.
It is for this reason that before the Essence’s sun of oneness
rises upon the wayfarer in our Path, he must first bring
together the seven heavens, the seven earths, the pedestal and
the throne, in one single glimpse. This is in order for him to
pass away from himself and from everything else and to
obtain the innermost secret. Moreover, it is through this
secret that he opens the meanings of tawḥīd that his intellect
was unable to access. In the dhikr, the disciple witnesses the
primordial Light of the Essence. Once you have grasped this
luminous reality, trust in God so that you may come to know
Him in both delimitation and non-delimitation.
Now this conversation that occurred between the Confidant
of God and Pharaoh manifested the heresy of Pharaoh,
because he knew well who Sayyidunā Mūsā was due to
having raised him. Likewise, our master the Confidant of
God knew Pharaoh very well. Pharaoh had an understanding
of the teachings of Mūsā, but his understanding revolved
around the axis of heresy, not emulation. This is why when
Mūsā clarified to him that no created thing is excluded from
the secret of God’s sustenance, Pharaoh’s raging jealousy
was aroused and he wanted to possess the center of the Hāʾ-
circle. So he told Mūsā in all arrogance and stubbornness, as
God tell us, Truly if you take a God apart from Me, I shall
place you among the imprisoned.172 It was as if he were
saying to him from upon the carpet of his fraudulent egoism,
“I too know the very thing you do, and the forms of me and
of you are a single entity, which has become multiple just as
the number one is multiplied throughout all the other
numbers. And I also know that I have complete control and
dominance over you.” That is why he threatened to imprison
him, so that the truth would not be revealed. Pharaoh knew of
the oneness of union (tawḥīd al-jamʿ) with knowledge of
certainty, but he claimed it for himself. He did not submit to
the message of Mūsā, but continued to follow the heresy of
his own intellect. Thus knowledge alone without faith does
not benefit, while sound knowledge built upon direct
experiential tasting leads to the reality of faith. This is why
you see that most Pharaohs are people of knowledge,
especially knowledge of astronomy (ʿilm al-falak), yet
despite that many of them are disbelievers.
As for the Pharaoh of Mūsā, he was aware of the essence of
union (al-ʿayn al-jamʿiyya), so Mūsā said to him, by way of
explanation and clarification, “Pharaoh, you cannot veil me
from the essence of union by threatening me with prison.”
For Mūsā had drunk from the union of union, from the pure
waters of the station of the truthful ones, from the Blessed
Tree. This is why the disciple must not forget the Blessed
Tree, lest he perish and his knowledge become heresy and
distance from God. Consider how the Antichrist (Dajjāl) will
not benefit from his knowledge, because he will deny the
Tree of Messengerhood and Sainthood, despite his
knowledge of it.
So Pharaoh knew of the Oneness of God, and whenever he
found himself in difficulty he would resort to it, as it
happened when he supplicated to God for the Nile to flow,
and God caused it to flow again, thus breaking the habitual
course of nature. Likewise, the Dajjāl will break the habitual
course of nature, and the treasures of the earth will flock to
him, and he will show people Heaven and Hell and bring
down rain for them. But all of these will be wisdoms and
lessons, so that a person may cling to his covenant with al-
Muṣṭafā ‫ﷺ‬, the root of the Tree. The truly deprived one is
the one who is cut off from the replenishment and assistance
of the wellspring of al-Muṣṭafā ‫ﷺ‬, even if the Alif of
God’s charismatic gifts (karāma) manifests upon him.
Pharaoh himself had great status among his peers, and was
a man of knowledge, insight and intelligence, but his
stubbornness made him a heretic. He offended against the
station of Mūsā, which is why Mūsā wanted to make him
seem weak in front of his people by presenting him with a
categorical demonstration of his argument. God tells us that
Sayyidunā Mūsā said, And if I bring you something
manifest?,173 to which Pharaoh replied in all arrogance,
Bring it then, if you are among the truthful.174 If Pharaoh
had said to Mūsā, “No, do not bring it,” he would have
revealed his fear and shown the people what was inside of
him, and been forced to acknowledged the truth of the
message of God’s Confidant.
 God says, Then he incited his people to levity, and they
obeyed him. Truly they were an iniquitous people.175 He
convinced them to make light of Moses because of their poor
understanding of God and because of his dominance over
them, so that they obeyed him in their iniquity and
disobedience to God. All of this veiling that occurred to them
was precisely a result of their dependence upon their
intellects. The one who depends on his intellect to know his
Lord depends on something that is created just like himself,
and the created is incapable of perceiving the Creator,
Exalted and Hallowed is He! Had they only followed the
commanding spirit (al-rūḥ al-amriyya) and the supreme
intellect (al-ʿaql al-akbar), they would have attained
experiential unveiling and certainty of eye-witnessing from
the quarry of realization.
So when Pharaoh accepted Mūsā’s, peace be upon him,
offer to bring something clear and manifest for him, Mūsā
cast his staff, and behold, it was a serpent manifest.176 He
cast the staff of the lower self, by which Pharaoh had
disobeyed177 the reality of the divine command (al-ḥaqīqa al-
amriyya), and it became a mirror for him and showed him a
manifest serpent in the realm of forms, depicting the lower
self of Pharaoh, which disobeyed the station of Lordship. The
serpent was clear and evident, and so Mūsā brought them
something that they could recognize, and the staff turned into
a serpent. Had Pharaoh obeyed Mūsā, his sins would have
been forgiven. This staff, which was an allusion to a Hidden
Alif, was itself borne by a Hidden Alif, namely Mūsā. The
divine authority manifested in the staff because divine
authority was its primordial quiddity. Sometimes it
manifested as a serpent, sometimes as a staff. It was as if he
were making Pharaoh aware that he, Mūsā, was the possessor
of the center and secrets, not Pharaoh. So when Pharaoh
brought forth the magicians, the staff swallowed the other
staffs which were snakes, and no trace was left of their staffs,
nor their snakes, while the staff of Mūsā remained as it was
in the beginning, without changing. Thus the Prophet of God
Mūsā was victorious, and his conclusive argument was made
manifest, and the magicians came to realize the true status of
God’s Confidant, and so believed in him and what he
brought, and prostrated to God. With that, they gained
elevation and honor.
As for Pharaoh, God appointed him a vicegerent in the
outward realm by disclosing Himself to him through the
name He Who Harms (al-Ḍārr). He was a harmful,
tyrannical, stubborn ruler who enslaved his own people
despite having knowledge. All of this is in order to
understand the Hidden Alif, for if you cast the staff—the
Hidden Alif—upon a person and you see his sins become
manifest upon him, this means he is a harmful tyrant. But if
his beautiful characteristics manifest upon him, this means he
is an obedient believer. It is a mirror that discloses things in
the realm of possibility, things that are hidden and non-
manifest in the realm of necessity.
20. The Everlasting Prostration (al-sujūd
al-abadī)
Mudhākara from the Friday
Gathering of 29th Dhū al-Ḥijja 1435 / 24th October 2014

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm

Know, dear loved ones, that there is no end to the wonders
of God’s word. Its graces are never cut off, its virtues are
innumerable and its secrets are incalculable. So taste with
me, may God have mercy upon you, the sweetness of His
words, Then were the sorcerers cast down prostrating,178
so that you may be sprayed by the mist of the ocean of the
tremendous Qurʾān.
When the sorcerers recognized the truth and the veil of
illusion vanished from the vision of their hearts upon the
carpet of annihilation, they turned from the fire of distance to
the garden of proximity. Their deeds, which had previously
issued from the lower self, came to issue from God. Note
how when they performed their deeds through the lower self,
the Qurʾān attributed the act to them, as follows: So they cast
their ropes and staffs and said, “By the might of Pharaoh
we shall surely be the victors,”179 with the verb attributed to
them. However, when they attained realization of witnessing
and became extinct from directions and limitations, God
attributed the act to Himself, thus: The sorcerers were cast
down prostrating.180 Initially, they affirmed the act to
themselves because of how densely veiled they were and how
blinded their inner vision was, but when they came to directly
taste the reality of sincerity and ascended to the pulpit of
deliverance, their deeds became the act of another. This is
why God describes the two states differently, even though in
reality the Doer and Chooser of both is one and the same.
This is the secret of the particular love that God bestows
upon whomever of His servants He wishes. It is to taste pure
servanthood by passing away in the Worshipped One (al-
maʿbūd). It is one of the life-breaths (nasama) of the ones
made sincere (al-mukhlaṣūn); the ones who are cloaked in
deeds and yet are as strangers in that cloak. This is why they
bore tribulation patiently and stood firm despite the hardships
that descended upon them.
May God bless the sage of the Sufis Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh al-
Iskandarī, God be pleased with him,, who said in his book
entitled “Abandoning Self-Governance” (Isqaṭ al-tadbīr),
“Know that when the Real desires to strengthen a servant to
withstand whatever fate He wills to send upon him, He
furnishes him with the presence of His authority, adorns him
with the Lights of His attributes, and cloaks him in His own
qualities. The Lights will already have come to him, and so
he will be through his Lord, not through his self, and will be
strong enough to bear those burdens. The inrushes of Light
are what helps them bear the decrees of fate.”
If you wish, you could say that what helps them bear the
divine decrees is the opening of the door of understandings.
Or one might say that what helps them bear the tribulations
are the inrushes of divine bestowals. Or if you wish you
could say that what strengthens them to bear His decrees is
the direct witnessing of God’s beautiful choosing. Or you
could say that what gives them patience in the face of divine
wisdom is their knowledge of His knowledge. Or you could
say that what grants them patience in the face of what occurs
to them is their knowledge that He sees. Or you could say
that what grants them patience in the face of God’s actions is
the manifestation of His beauty upon them. Or you could say
that what grants them patience in the face of His
foreordainment is their knowledge that restraint bequeaths
God’s good pleasure. Or you could say that what gives them
patience to bear with the divine decrees (aqdār) is the parting
of the veils and the curtains (astār). Or you could say that
what strengthens them to bear the weight of religious
accountability (taklīf) is the inrushes of the inner secrets of
His control (taṣrīf). Or you could say that what grants them
patience in the face of His decrees is their knowledge of what
He deposited in them by way of His subtle graces and
goodness. These then are ten causes which enable the servant
to have patience and to stand firm before the decrees of his
Master when they occur; and He is the One who bestows in
all of that through His grace.
As for the question of why the act of Sayyidunā Mūsā,
peace be upon him, is described in the Qurʾān in the active
form, He cast his staff, ascribing the act to his own noble
presence, it is due to a secret relating to the divine realities
that cannot be divulged here. The most that can be said is that
the deeds of Sayyidunā Mūsā were produced from the
presence of subsistence in God (al-baqāʾ biʾLlāh) through
the realization of the station of with-ness.
As for the magicians, when they witnessed God’s subtle
graces and experienced true direct witnessing of the Lights of
subtle divine grace that flows through every abandoned
object, they said in the spirit of reliance on God from upon
the carpet of good pleasure, It is no harm; truly unto our
Lord we shall return.181 They said this after Pharaoh had
threatened them with execution and terrible torment, for he
had been made dominant over them by the law of kingship;
he was manifestation-site of the All-Compelling, the Giver of
Harm, and he transgressed his boundaries and sinned, as God
tells us: He said, “Do you believe in Him before I give you
leave? He is indeed your chief who has taught you
sorcery. But soon you shall know. I shall cut off your
hands and your feet from opposite sides, and I shall
surely crucify you all.”182
Everything has a price, and the price of proximity and
gnosis is to sell one’s soul to God. The more you ask for
precious pearls, the more you should prepare for successive
trials. A hadith tells us that the Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬said,
“The greater the compensation, the greater the trial; and the
most beloved unto God are the ones who are tried the most.
The one who is content shall have contentment, and the one
who is displeased shall have displeasure.”183
Is there anyone among you who has sold his belongings
and his soul to God? Is there anyone among you who has
abandoned the lower world and taken God as his intimate
Friend? Or is it that when a trial befalls one of you, he
frowns, and when he speaks to others a great calamity occurs
when his words reveal his displeasure at God’s decree? So be
alert, for the time of trial is when a person is either exalted or
abased.
Observe the perfected faith of the sorcerers and the
elevation of their state. Despite the Lights of guidance that
dwelled in their hearts and the expansion they attained, they
did not transgress the boundaries of courtesy (adab). They
were submissive to the divine Majesty, and when they asked
for forgiveness, they asked it in a state oscillating between
hope and fear. God tells us that they said, Truly we wish
that our Lord will forgive us our sins for our having been
the first of the believers.184 The word “wish” (ṭamaʿ) here is
used to express the sense of uncertainty (ẓann), and this
unqualified uncertainty is a display of courtesy with God, a
feeling that is fused between hope and fear, desire and awe.
You hope that your wish will be granted, and you also fear
that it might not be. Herein lies the reality of courtesy with
God, for He does what He will, and His mercy is dominant.
The sorcerers were not deluded, nor did they fall into pride
because of the divine knowledge God granted them, as Iblīs
did. This is what the state of the knower of God should be: he
should always suspect himself, and view the Lights and
secrets God has granted him as being foreign to him,
something for which he deserves no credit. When he looks at
himself with the eye of suspicion, he will fear God; and when
he looks at God’s grace upon him, he will feel hope, because
God would not have graced him with them if He had not
wanted to give to him in order to make him thankful.
As for their words, for our having been the first of the
believers, this was due to how they had gazed into the mirror
of Mūsā, for the believer is the mirror of his brother. The
pure meanings of faith were imprinted upon the scrolls of
their hearts when His realities and Lights disclosed
themselves to them through Sayyidunā Mūsā, and they
witnessed them directly in accordance with their
preparedness. The primacy of faith had always been Mūsā’s
since pre-eternity, as God says,
And when Moses came to our appointed meeting and
his Lord spoke to him, he said, “My Lord, show me that I
may look upon Thee.” He said “Thou shall not see me,
but look upon the mountain. If it remains firm in its
place, then thou shall see me.” And when his Lord
manifested Himself to the mountain, He made it crumble
to dust, and Moses fell down in a swoon. And when he
recovered he said, “Glory be unto Thee! I turn unto Thee
in repentance, and I am the first of the believers.”185
The sorcerers partook in this through the grace of
emulation; for every quality attained by a follower is credited
to the one he follows. Hence, what the Confidant of God said
after he woke up from the swoon of the disclosure was later
said by his followers after the descent (tadallī) of the divine
presence.
The Almighty also tells us in His Book that the sorcerers
said to Pharaoh,
We shall never prefer you to the clear proofs that have
come to us, by the One who originated us! So decree what
you would decree. You only decree in the life of this
world. Truly we believe in our Lord, that He may forgive
us our sins and the sorcery that you compelled us to
perform; and God is better and more lasting.186
This was due to the perfection of their direct knowledge of
their Lord, and their firm-footedness in the perception of the
levels of existence. Thus they said, We shall never prefer
you to the clear proofs, O Pharaoh, for there can be no
denial after the clear proof of witnessing. Then by the One
who originated us was an oath sworn on the divine creative
power, from which no created thing in the circle of the realm
of possibility is excluded. This was so that perhaps Pharaoh
might wake up and renounce his egoism. So decree what
you would decree, for we are content with God’s decree and
design for us. You only decree in the life of this world,187
for you possess a level that we do not in the herebelow,
namely authority and vicegerency through the tyranny of the
sword.
Thus in a sense Pharaoh was correct when he said, I am
your exalted lord. He was correct with respect to their
experiential taste of faith, not in the sense of his own
deficient understanding of the essence of union. That is, he
was correct on the level of lordship that is attributed to the
created being, in the sense that you speak of the lord of a
family (rabb al-usra), or the lord of a house (rabb al-bayt),
or the lord of a work (rabb al-ʿamal, or a “boss” in Arabic).
Consider also the hadith about the lost she-camel, wherein
the Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬said, “Until its lord finds it,” meaning its
owner. In this sense Pharaoh was the lord of the kingdom
over which he ruled. This is why the sorcerers said, You only
decree in the life of this world, because they knew that his
authority in view of his level as a temporal entity would not
last. Rather, it was nothing other than a disclosure of the
Living, the Sustaining. And since the sorcerers had drunk
from the cup of tawḥīd, they knew that Pharaoh had
corrupted realities, and so they understood that there can be
no changing God’s words, and that there was no avoiding
their punishment at Pharaoh’s hands. This is because the
cosmic forms of nonexistence are in reality words spoken by
God.
To this effect, the people of knowledge spoke the truth
when they said that the cosmos is a silent Qurʾān, and the
Qurʾān is a speaking cosmos, and the Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬is a
walking Qurʾān. The Qurʾān before its descent was a handful
of Light, which was sent down as one compositional whole
upon the heart of the Messenger ‫ﷺ‬. Then when he ‫ﷺ‬
went to the cave of Ḥirāʾ to worship, that singular Qurʾān
descended to the setting-places of the stars (mawāqiʿ al-
nujūm), and then began to descend in accordance to events
and circumstances. Now the setting-places of a star is not the
star itself; for instance, the setting-place through which the
moon passes is greater in measure than the moon. The
setting-place corresponds to the secret code for the lunar
landmass, containing what was and what will be. All of that
is registered in the book of setting-places of the stars.
It is on account of this secret, moreover, that the letters of
the Arabic alphabet, which come together to form words, are
divided into two sorts, fourteen luminous letters (ḥurūf
nūrāniyya), and fourteen shades of luminosity (ẓill
nurāniyya). This adds up to twenty- eight letters, which is the
number of the mansions of the moon (al-manāzil al-
qamariyya). The luminous letters are the oath-letters
(qawāsim) in the Qurʾān, meaning the disconnected letters—
Alif Lām Mīm, Yāʾ Sīn, Kāf Hāʾ ʿAyn Ṣād, Nūn, Qāf, and so
on. Everything that is contained in the noble Qurʾān is
summarized synoptically in these oath-letters, and everything
in these oath-letters is summarized in the dot (nuqṭa), the
reality of which is that Muḥammadan Light. The Qurʾān in
the setting-places of the stars is the first descent of the Qurʾān
from the presence of the Essence. By this we mean the sum
total of the names and attributes; as for the sheer Essence,
there is no way to perceive it. This is also called the
Concealed Book (al-kitāb al-maknūn), as per the verse, I
swear by the setting-places of the stars; and truly it is a
magnificent oath if you but knew; truly it is a noble
Qurʾān, in a Concealed Book; none touch it save those
who are made pure; a revelation from the Lord of the
Worlds.188 The Concealed Book is forbidden to those who
are not purified from the vision of other-than-God.
The first step in the Path of erasing these traces from the
witnessing-site of the heart is the descent of the
Muḥammadan star into your heart by virtue of the verse, By
the star when it sets.189 During its descent into your heart, it
speaks to you and it points you to your relationship with your
Lord and with your family, and with everything that
surrounds you, and it teaches you to read the Concealed Book
in the setting-places of the stars. The second descent is His
words, Nay, truly the book of the pious is in ‘Illiyūn. And
what will apprise thee of ‘Illiyyun? A Book Inscribed,
witnessed by those brought nigh.190 The third descent is
alluded to in the verse, By the Mount, and by the Book
Inscribed on parchment outspread; by the house
inhabited, by the canopy raised, and by the sea swilling
over, truly thy Lord’s punishment shall come to pass;
naught can avert it.191 The “Book Inscribed” is the Noble
Qurʾān that is written on the pages that we hold in our hands,
which is permitted to be read by both the believer and the
unbeliever, the person of true faith and the heretic.
By virtue of the innermost secret of the Qurʾān’s all
comprehensiveness, the Qurʾān is one and is not multiple. It
brings together the inscribed (masṭūr), the numbered
(marqūm),192 and the concealed (maknūn). There is a hadith
related by Ibn Masʿūd, God be pleased with him, wherein the
Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬said, “The Qurʾān was sent down in seven
letters, and each verse has an outside and an inside, and each
has a point of ascent (maṭlaʿ) and a boundary (ḥadd).”193
Thus, the subtle commentary, or the inner Qurʾān, is this
concealed book, while the inscribed book is the outward
Qurʾān, and the numbered book is between the two. There is
no contradiction between the three for those who are able to
see through the isthmus.
As for the visible Qurʾān (al-Qurʾān al-manẓūr), it is the
vast cosmos around you. When you come to realize the pure
meaning, you find that everything in it is nothing but words.
You say, “ʿAbdullāh married Fāṭima and they sired ʿAbd al-
Razzāq and Idrīs,” and you say, “the sky” and “the earth” and
so on. These are all words, and each word has a breath that
assumes a shape of the forms of existent things. Thus you are
a collection of words, and we are all miniature books in
which we write our past and present, and in which we will
write our future. The cosmos is a great book that expresses
the oneness of God. When you observe these traces, read in
them the words of God, if you are a person of experiential
taste. The command began with a state of rest (sukūn), and
was set into motion through the secret of “Be!” (kun). So if
you imagine yourself to be the author, know that you are in a
state of self-admiration and distance from God.
 Since we have breached the subject of the ocean of words,
you should know that the first thing that was written by the
Supreme Pen was the word of reverence (taqwā), namely lā
ilāha illā Allāh, Muḥammad rasūl Allāh. This is the Tree
whose root is firm in the ground and whose branches are in
the heavens, because lā ilāha, “there is no god,” is the
annihilation (fanāʾ) of the heavens and the earth, and illā
Allāh, “except God,” is the Light of the heavens and the
earth, which is subsistence (baqāʾ). The Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬said,
“Renew your faith.” He was asked, “O Messenger of God,
how do we renew our faith?” He ‫ ﷺ‬replied, “By saying lā
ilāha illā Allāh many times.”194 Thus, whenever the forms of
created things imprint themselves upon the heart, the latter
grows distant from God and darkness settles within it, and its
faith is tested. Nothing causes these forms to leave the heart
except the invocation of lā ilāha illā Allāh until faith is
renewed in it. Saying lā ilāha illā Allāh with sincerity will
make it a barrier between you and what is forbidden. What is
the reality of lā ilāha illā Allāh? What is its trust? It is the
Light of God. All you have to do is read its motions, which
are the motions of the star, until you come to possess a tree
whose root is firm in the earth of your heart, and whose
branches are in the heaven of your spirit, and whose shade is
the shade of God on the day when there shall be no shade but
His. All of this by virtue of realizing your pledge of
allegiance (bayʿa) to the Messenger of God ‫ ﷺ‬beneath the
Tree.
Moreover, none of the letters in lā ilāha illā Allāh
Muḥammad rasūl Allāh bear any dots. Where did the dot go?
It is in the inner kernel of your heart, so look for it there. You
will not find it except by the Lamp of the heart of a guide
whose heart’s dot has ascended above the atoms of his very
being.
 As for the walking Qurʾān, it is God’s mercy to the worlds,
Sayyidunā Muḥammad ‫ﷺ‬. Our pure mother the knower of
God Sayyida ʿĀʾisha, may God be pleased with her, was
asked about the character of the Prophet ‫ﷺ‬, and replied
that his character was the Qurʾān.195 His ‫ ﷺ‬speech was
read according to seventy levels, corresponding to the
number of the seventy veils. Each one of the Companions
understood from him what the other did not. How could
his ‫ ﷺ‬words not encompass the veils when he ‫ ﷺ‬is the
supreme spirit (al-rūḥ al-aʿẓam), in the mirror of whose
Light the manifestation-sites of the names are disclosed, and
nowhere else? The knowers of God (ʿārifūn) draw upon
nothing but the ocean of his Light; they are bewildered in
nothing but the beauty of his manifestation; they are melted
in nothing but the awe of his witnessing.
Know also that what is cheap in the Garden is precious in
the herebelow, and what is precious in the herebelow is cheap
in the Garden. Gold, silver, musk and amber are expensive in
the herebelow, but in the Garden they are cheap, and serve as
building blocks for its houses and palaces. Likewise, in the
herebelow you see your lower self as being precious and
dear, which is why you refuse to sell it to God. He has
offered to buy it from you, and the offer stands, but you
refuse to surrender it to God because of how precious it is to
you. Yet in the Garden it is cheap, given what God will give
to you in return for it, if you only were to sell it to Him.
Contemplate what you were created for, O forgetful one!
 21. Fire and Light (Nār wa-Nūr)
Mudhākara from the Friday
Gathering of 20th Muḥarram 1436 / 14th November 2014

Bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm

My dear loved ones, we have arrived at the conclusion of
our gatherings concerning the Mūsā-presence by virtue of
Hāʾ-reading through entering into contact with the Alif. Of
course, when we say “presence” (ḥaḍra), we say it
figuratively, for when we speak of the Mūsā-presence we
must recall and unveil all of the gnostic sciences, teachings
and states that it contains. The name of a presence is not
complete until its reading is completed by way of direct
witnessing through all the levels of that name, and this goes
for the presences of all the Prophets, upon them all the
blessings and peace.
This shall be the end of our discussion of this presence,
which has left in us a yearning and a love that only a
wretched person could forget. This then is the final lesson,
and so it is as if we are parting with it—yet it shall remain
with us, dear wayfarers, because of how its pure meanings
have descended into your hearts, and because of the
experiential taste and understanding that it shall leave in you.
For the Mūsā-presence is the presence of contact with the
Alif, which causes the one who enters into it to ascend
everlastingly and without end. This is the presence of
separation and union, the presence of love and mercy, the
presence of the manifestation of the opposites, the presence
of exerting control (taṣrīf). This is the presence of casting and
receiving (ilqāʾ and talaqqī), the presence of the secrets of
the word. That is why it is difficult to part from it, especially
for those who have tasted some of the life-breaths of the Alif
within it.
Consider the self-disclosure of the Real and His
manifestation to Sayyidunā Mūsā, peace be upon him, in the
verse of fire (āyat al-nār): He saw a fire and said unto his
family, “Stay here; verily I perceive a fire. Perhaps I shall
bring you a brand therefrom, or find guidance at the
fire.”196 Pure meanings may only be tasted by those for
whom all constructed things have vanished, and those to
whom God has given a disclosure of bewilderment and
garbed them in the dress of love and yearning. You find them
to be enraptured in the Real through their witnessing of the
glorifications of God’s creation. As for those with dense
natures, strong delusions and lack of taste, they halt at the
outward dimension of things and see them as lifeless objects
with no motion or speech. Yet do things express anything but
that which settles in them? Such people forget that those
things are signs from the Real to creation, that we may come
to discover Him.
The enraptured gnostic converses with objects as lovers
(āshiqīn) converse, for he witnesses the secret of God’s
absolute sustenance in all things. For were it not for the Real,
the created existent would have no existence. The Shaykh of
our Shaykhs Sayyidī Aḥmad al-ʿAlawī said, “Every atom in
existence has upon it one of the names of the Object of
worship.” Hence the realized ones say, “Everything I ever
saw, I saw God before it.” Or: “Everything I ever saw, I saw
God with it.” Or: “Everything I ever saw, I saw God after it.”
Thus the gnostic, as he dwells among created things, never
fails to taste the flow of love that flows through them. To
make this easier to comprehend, let us offer a simple
example: What is the source of love that exists between a
man and his wife? Does it not come from the Real? What
about your love for your family, your children, your craving
of food or drink when you are overcome by thirst? When you
directly taste the subtle graces that are hidden behind these
forms, you will be bewildered by the love of the Real, until
you come to understand His self-disclosures and hear the
voices of all existent things as they cry out, lā ilāha illā
Allāh!
In contrast, the one with the lowly nature does what we
have described only in order to quench his bestial instincts.
The one who directly tastes the glorifications of the cosmos
for the Real understands the message of God, and his states
are transformed from heedlessness to presence, from
darkness to Light. Do you not see how God disclosed
Himself to His Confidant in the form of fire? No one can
deny this Qurʾānic verse. Regarding the story of Mūsā, it is
said that he was a jealous man and would accompany his
travelling companions at night but separate himself from
them during the day, so that no one would see his wife. One
dark and rainy night, he took a wrong turn because God
wanted to honor him. He tried to light a fire, but it would not
kindle. Then he spotted a fire in the distance to the left of the
Path in the direction of Mount Ṭūr. So he said unto his
family, “Stay here; verily I perceive a fire. Perhaps I shall
bring you a brand therefrom,” meaning that he would take
a stick and light the end of it on fire, or “find guidance at
the fire,” meaning someone to show him the way. So
Sayyidunā Mūsā, peace be upon him, went to the fire in a
state of yearning and love, hoping to attain his goal. God
says: Then when he came to it, he was called, “O Mūsā,
Verily I am thy Lord. Take off thy sandals. Truly thou art
in the holy valley of Ṭuwā.’”197 So when he approached the
fire, God addressed him from it; for the One whom nothing is
like unto Him does not address except through the
glorifications of things. Mūsā’s resolve was concentrated
solely upon attaining the fire, so God disclosed himself to
him through it. Had God disclosed himself through anything
other than what Mūsā was seeking, he would not have paid it
any heed.
It is related in some commentaries that Sayyidunā Mūsā
took some dry grass and headed towards the tree, but as he
went closer to it, the fire receded, and when he stepped back
the fire came closer. So he stood still in a state of
bewilderment, and heard the glorification of the angels, and
peaceful repose (sakīna) was cast upon him. Had his
aspiration (himma) not been concentrated on the fire, he
would not have gone closer to it when it withdrew, nor would
it have gone closer to him when he withdrew. The fire sought
him just as he sought it. And when the sakina was sent down
upon him and he heard the call, he knew that the All-
Forgiving (al-Gaffār) had descended to him in the form of
fire, and he found intimacy when he witnessed the presence
of the All-Holy. A noble hadith tells us that the Prophet ‫ﷺ‬
said, “God’s veil is fire. If it were lifted, the rays of His face
would burn everything upon which His gaze alighted.”198
Now if we want to bring this meaning down to the ruling
properties of the Path that leads to the levels of realization,
we would say that when the wayfarer pledges allegiance to a
lordly Shaykh, and when the sun of God’s self-disclosure
shines upon his heart from the carpet of his name al-Nūr, the
Light, so that his aspiration is concentrated upon it and he
turns to God with his entire being—when he does this, God
discloses Himself to the seeker through His proximity.
Ponder this Mūsā-wisdom: if God had addressed him through
the form of Light, then Mūsā would have been afraid of it
when it increased and became more intense. So God
disclosed Himself to Mūsā through the sign of fire, and told
him, I am your Lord. Why then did he have no doubt in the
divine address, and not think that it was from the devil, or
from some lowly servant? Far be it for Mūsā to have doubt! I
alert you to this so that you may learn the secret of the great
status of God’s Confidant, to whom God said: I selected thee
for Myself.199 This is why he welcomed the divine self-
disclosure in the form of the fire. The one who saw him
outwardly would have seen him approaching the fire, while
the one who saw him inwardly would have seen him
approaching God. This is why we say that one sign of felicity
for the wayfarer on the Path of gnosis is that he welcomes the
inrush of Light by honoring it, and does not leave any room
for doubt to creep into his thoughts. The Real is jealous, and
if you doubt in His Light, it may well leave you. Light is also
a kind of veil, for another hadith tells us that the
Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬said, “His veil is Light. Were He to lift it, the
rays of His face would burn every one of His creations upon
which His gaze alighted.”200
So, dear seeker of elevation in the footsteps of Mūsā, you
must come to understand God in all of His self-disclosures.
You should not say, “But he was a Prophet, and one of the
men of great resolve among the Messengers, may peace be
upon them all. How could I be anything like him?” Rather
you should know that the Prophets were sent by the Real to
His creation in order that we emulate them and follow in their
footsteps; and we should emulate them in their states, just as
we emulate them in their words and deeds. We should follow
their rulings outwardly, and drink from their oceans
inwardly. At the same time, anyone who labors under the
illusion that he could compare to them is deluded indeed!
You should know your worth, and do not seek to go beyond
your own Mount Ṭūr. The ground cannot reach the height of
the stars.
As for the one who rejects the Light of the Real despite its
disclosure upon him through His All-Mercifulness, he should
know that it is not him who has turned away from God.
Rather, it is God who turns away from him. This lesson
should suffice for those who would learn. Thus, when you
see that a servant’s aspiration is always to remember God and
to be present at His gatherings, then know that God wants
good for him. A noble hadith tells us that Ibn Masʿūd, God
be pleased with him, said,
“We were with the Messenger of God ‫ ﷺ‬when a rider
approached, dismounted and said, ‘O Messenger of God, I
have come to you from far away. I have worn out my mount
and endured sleepless nights and thirsty days, all to ask you
about two traits which have kept me awake.’ The
Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬said, ‘What is your name?’ He replied, ‘I am
Zayd al-Khayl (Zayd of the horse).’ He said, ‘No, you are
Zayd al-Khayr (Zayd of the good)! Ask, for many a
troublesome thing has been asked about.’ So he said, ‘I wish
to ask you about the sign of God in those He desires, and His
sign in those He does not desire.’ The Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬said,
‘How did you wake up this morning?’ He replied, ‘I woke up
loving goodness and its folk and those who practice it. When
I practice it, I have certainty of its compensation, and when it
escapes me, I long for it.’ The Messenger ‫ ﷺ‬said, ‘This is
the sign of God in those He desires, and His sign in those He
desires not. If He wanted the other for you, He would have
prepared you for it, and would not care in what river you
drowned.’”201
This is why, dear seeker, you must not be heedless of
witnessing the gratuitous favor while realizing your
neediness of God. Strive for goodness so that you may be
among its people, and avoid what is bad so that you shall be
among those who are in safety. If divine bestowals come to
you, witness therein the Bestower, and give your ear as a
witness. The tongues of the divine attributes of power call to
you, “This is your bestowal, so do not witness anyone other
than Me with it.” And the tongue of divine wisdom calls to
you, “This is Our bestowal, so surrender to Us forever.”
Thus, when the innermost secret of the divine attribute of
power discloses itself to you, your aspiration will be
concentrated upon Him, and all other-ness (ghayriyya) will
vanish from your sight. Through these subtle graces of the
Lights of Muḥammadan wisdom, you will journey unto Him.
Stand at His door in a state of neediness, and enter upon Him
seeking forgiveness, and prostrate to His secret by witnessing
your utter poverty. Then you shall subsist through Him, serve
His lordship, and give thanks for His bestowal.
Let us now return to our subject, the affair of Sayyidunā
Mūsā. When he turned to Mount Ṭūr seeking to gaze upon
the Beloved, God pulverized the mountain into dust, and the
Confidant fell in a swoon. Mount Ṭūr stayed in its place, and
so did Mūsā, while God remains hallowed beyond time and
space. These are but self-disclosures that God renders
through unveiling to His servants in order to draw them near
to Him through His luminosity. God discloses Himself to the
wayfarer: He discloses Himself to the divinely-attracted one
(majdhūb) through total attraction, and discloses Himself to
the wayfarer through wayfaring. The one to whom He
discloses Himself through attraction will abandon his family
and loved ones, and the one to whom he discloses Himself
through love will pray through the night and be enraptured in
the early hours. The stations vary according to the variety of
self-disclosures. He is the One who disclosed Himself in the
form of fire without any indwelling or unification, because
nothing is as His like. He is the One who created fire, so
how could He be delimited by fire? Everything that the eyes
see is annihilation, while He remains, First and Last, Inward
and Outward. This existence around you is nonexistent, while
to God belongs total existence. All things upon it are
perishing, and the Face of your Lord remains in Majesty
and Nobility.202 If the disclosures of the Real were to become
cut off, we would have no way to live, and we would return
to nonexistence.
It is the scope of the heart that understands the symbol, just
as the companions used to understand hadiths according to
seventy definitions, and the Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬would confirm
them all. It has been transmitted through tradition that
he ‫ ﷺ‬said, “My companions are like the stars: whichever
one you follow, you shall be guided.”203 The Chosen
One ‫ ﷺ‬garbed them in his mantle, and so they became
stars of guidance, adorned by the sun to radiate its Light.
Moreover, the name-disclosures of the herebelow are not
like those of the hereafter. The Prophet ‫ ﷺ‬said in a Sacred
Hadith, “I have prepared for My righteous servants that
which no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart
has conceived of.”204 This is why we say that His names
cannot be numbered or reckoned, and that the revealed Law
has manifested some of them so that the servant may come to
assume their traits. For instance, he may assume the traits of
the name al-Karīm, the Generous, and so become generous,
and so on. The proof for the multiplicity of His most
beautiful names, and that some are outward and others
inward, is that he ‫ ﷺ‬said,
“When one of you is stricken with grief, he should say, ‘I
am your servant, the son of your servant, the son of your
maiden. My forelock is in Your grasp; Your decree is binding
upon me. I ask You by every name of Yours with which You
named Yourself, or taught to any of Your creatures, or
revealed in Your Book, or kept hidden in the unseen
knowledge that is with You, to make the Qurʾān the spring of
my heart, and the Light of my breast, and the remedy for my
sorrow, and the cure for my woes.’ Anyone who says this
will find that God dispels his woes and sorrows, and replaces
them with joy.” Someone said, “Messenger of God, shall we
learn this?” He replied, “Indeed, everyone who hears it ought
to learn it.”205
So the disclosures differ, while the One who discloses
Himself is One, and does not change or transform. Consider
the earth, and how the dinosaurs lived upon it, while jinn and
humans do today. If you were to go back in time, you would
find many different forms: tents, caves, pyramids and so on.
And today you see upon the face of the earth airplanes and
skyscrapers. Yet, it is the same earth, and in reality there are
neither pyramids nor skyscrapers, because everything upon it
is perishing and passing away.
If you want to taste this, you have to free yourself from the
delimitations of time and space; for divergence only exists in
the forms. It is as if you placed a ringstone in a ring, and that
ringstone began to move from place to place like the
revolving of the earth around the sun, each rotation different
from the last. 2014 is not like 2013. Likewise, the disclosures
of God display themselves to you in full variety, yet the
Unchanging One remains as He is, and nothing is as His
like. As for you, O human being, you used to be idle, and
now you work. You used to be a bachelor, and now you are
married. You used to be young, and now you are old. How
many believers have become unbelievers? How many
unbelievers have become believers? So gather your aspiration
in love for Laylā, for it is only one night in your life. When
Laylā loves someone, she lifts her veil for him, so let his only
aspiration be to see Laylā and engage in intimate discourse
with her. Look at those who have left a mark on creation,
God’s folk. They left those marks through their love of
Laylā. They reserved an hour at night for intimate discourse
with the Real. It is in that hour that love and yearning are
made; it is in that hour that understanding and taste are
acquired.
 Conclusion

To conclude, when the Hidden Alif or the staff of

Sayyidunā Mūsā appears, union discloses itself in separation,
and dry land appears in the ocean. The Pharaoh of the lower
self drowns in the ocean of esoteric realities, and the Mūsā of
the heart is delivered. Then the Real saves the lower self
through its faith so that it may serve as a lesson for others.
There is, moreover, an allusion in the Samaritan for those
who have intelligence. His journeying through the union of
separation serves as a trial for others, for it casts the oath-
violation into the calf of immanent comparability (ʿijl al-
tashbīh)—so be careful, for there is no attainment there.
The furthest end of this Path is to ascend in degrees of
incapacitation and plunge into the ocean of bewilderment.
This is what we have attempted to convey to the reader in
this book. For the intense manifestation of lordship
necessitates veiling, since the Manifest is inseparable from
the name the Nonmanifest. Gnosis is a journey through the
isthmus of esoteric realities, so that the wayfarer becomes the
imaginary line that bridges the separation between the Lām
and the Alif.
We must also emphasize the importance of referring back
to the Shaykh at each level of wayfaring in order for the
disciple to attain his goal and furthest aspiration, puncture the
ship of habits, slay the youth of caprice, and build the wall of
the revealed Law upon the treasure of esoteric truth. In so
doing, he will give lordship its rightful due, and servanthood
its rightful due, and will become the root and locus of the
Archetypal Book, uniting within himself that which is
separated others.
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 Index of Names & Terms

A
Aaron (see Hārūn).
Adam 34-5, 74, 77-8, 80, 87-8, 90, 119, 128, 132, 149, 165.
ʿĀʾisha, Sayyida 43, 196.
ʿAlawī, Aḥmad, al- 126, 201.
ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, Sayyidunā 48, 78, 107, 127.
Alif, Hidden (al-alif al-muqaddar) 14, 17, 22, 57-9, 61, 64, 71, 73, 80-3, 90-1,
106-7, 135-7, 139, 143, 147, 156, 161-3, 180-81, 211.
Alif, Singular (al-alif al-aḥadī) 17, 21, 23, 82, 91-2, 107, 130, 137, 156, 163.
Annihilation (fanāʾ) 35, 42, 46, 50, 59, 74, 87, 106, 130-1, 143, 170, 178, 183,
195, 207.
Arrival (wuṣūl) 13, 30, 46, 48, 53, 92, 99, 106, 111, 121, 130, 135, 137, 143, 156,
160, 163, 167, 169.
Āsiya (Wife of Pharoah) 80, 81.
Attraction, divine (jadhb, majdhūb) 74, 207.
B
Book, Concealed (maknūn).
Book, Inscribed (masṭūr) 193-4.
Book, Numbered (marqūm) 194.
Breath of the All-Merciful (nafas al-Raḥmān), 125-7, 129, 131, 133.
Breeze, spiritual (pl. nafaḥāt), 67, 137.
C
Calf (ʿijl) 18-20, 23-5, 27, 29, 32, 43, 48-9, 211.
Caprice (hawā) 18, 24-6, 28, 35, 52, 106, 129, 159, 212.
Charismatic gift (karāma) 179.
Children of Israel (banū Isrāʾīl) 27, 43, 60.
City of Knowledge (madīnat al-ʿilm) 107.
Color 32, 54, 68, 75-7, 113, 126.
Commanding Spirit (al-rūḥ al-amriyya) 180.

D
Dabbāgh, ʿAbd al-Wāḥid, al- 74.
Darqāwī, Mūlay al-ʿArabī, al- 29.
Delimitation (taqyīd) 14, 18, 45, 47-8, 53, 86-7, 90, 106-7, 160, 176, 177, 207,
209.
Disclosure (tajallī) 32, 36, 42, 55, 62, 64, 67-8, 70, 73-4, 76, 80-1, 85-7, 91-3,
101, 103-4, 107, 114-5, 121, 125, 127, 136, 141, 144, 148, 150, 175, 181, 189,
191, 196, 200, 201-4, 206-11.
Disclosure-site (majlā) 64, 73, 80, 91, 92-3, 107, 114.

E
Elevation (rifʿa) 21, 42-3, 45, 58, 62, 97, 127, 174, 181, 188, 204.
Experience, fruitional (see Taste, dhawq).
F
False Idol (ṭāghūt) 32-3.
Fāṭima, Sayyida 43.
G
Gabriel 9, 19.
Glass Container (zujāja) 54, 77.
Gleam, twinkling (lamḥa) 99, 100.
H
Hāʾ of Identity (hāʾ al-huwiyya) 28, 71, 82, 86, 89-90, 92, 104-7, 130, 135-6.
Hāʾ-reading (qirāʾa hāʾiyya) 15, 135, 156, 163, 199.
Hārūn 15, 17-19, 21, 47-9, 57-9, 63.
Heresy (ilḥād) 36, 174, 177-8.
I
Ibn ʿAbbās 58, 120.
Inerrancy (ʿiṣma) 115-6.
Inner vision (baṣīra) 29, 33, 54, 80, 85, 122, 169, 184.
Intellect (ʿaql) 14-5, 52, 55, 91, 98-9, 102, 122, 128, 168, 171, 176-78.
Intermediary (wāṣiṭa) 22, 31, 33, 35, 37-9, 42-4, 46, 53, 76, 121.
Invincibility, realm (jabarūt) 76-7, 102.
Iskandarī, Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh, al- 90, 185.
J
Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh 103.
Jābir b. Zayd 69.
Jamal, Sīdī ʿAlī, al- 74.
Jesus (ʿĪsā) 19, 43, 114.
Jīlānī, ʿAbd al-Qādir, al- 33.
K
Khiḍr, al 116-6, 118, 151, 154, 159-61.
L
Lām of Constriction (lām al-qabḍ) 52, 88, 150.
Lām of Gnosis (lām al-maʿrifa) 52, 82, 88, 91, 107, 136-7, 156, 162.
Lām of Love (lām al-ʿishq) 121, 130, 150.
Light, Handful (qabḍa nūrāniyya) 19, 67, 82, 103, 145, 191.
Lordship (rubūbiyya) 147-9, 151, 153, 155, 157, 167, 169, 171, 173-5, 180, 90,
207, 211-2.
Lower Self (nafs) 46, 53-4, 59, 94, 98, 115, 118, 128, 130, 137, 145, 151, 180,
184, 197, 211.
M
Macrocosm (al-ʿālam al-kabīr) 78, 90-1.
Manifestation-site (maẓhar) 27, 36, 39, 67, 75, 78, 86-7, 90, 106, 126, 146, 148,
174-5, 187, 196.
Messengerhood (risāla) 15, 17-8, 47-9, 63, 71, 136, 155-6, 161-2, 166, 178.
Microcosm (al-ʿālam al-ṣaghīr) 91.
Miracle (muʿjiza) 33.
Mother of Moses (Umm Mūsā) 73, 75, 117, 118.
Muḥammadan Mīm 47, 82, 111.
Muḥammadan Reality (al-ḥaqīqa al-Muḥammadiyya) 76, 82, 82, 91.
N
Name, Singular (al-ism al-mufrad) 17, 21-2, 86, 104, 108, 170.
Name, Supreme (al-ism al-aʿẓam) 82, 108, 149.
Niche (mishkāt) 33, 86.
Non-Delimitation (iṭlāq) 53, 54, 81-2, 86-7, 91-2, 107, 176-7.
Non-qualification (see Non-delimitation, iṭlāq).
P
Pass away (see annihilation, fanāʾ).
Pedestal (kursī) 90, 176.
Perfect Man (al-insān al-kāmil) 79, 80-1, 87, 90-2, 151.
Permission (idhn) 15, 19-20, 98.
Perspicacity (firāsa) 97.
Planet, Resplendent (kawkab durrī) 21-22.
Prophethood (nubuwwa) 14, 17-18, 32, 34, 47-9, 57, 63, 71, 84, 136, 155-6, 161-
2, 165.
Q
Qualification (see Delimitation taqyīd).
Qurʾān, visible (al-Qurʾān al-manẓūr) 194.
R
Retreat (khalwa) 29, 42.

S
Sainthood (wilāya) 14, 18, 47-9, 63-4, 71, 74-5, 83-4, 136-7, 143, 150, 155-7,
161-3, 165-6, 178, 217.
Samaritan (al-Sāmirī) 18-20, 27, 32-3, 211.
Saul (Ṭālūt) 79.
Separation (farq, faṣl) 14, 23, 74, 89, 91, 93-4, 114, 122, 137, 139, 160, 200, 211.
Shaykh of Training (shaykh al-tarbiyya) 38, 53, 94, 99, 116, 123, 152, 171.
Shuʿayb 106, 150.
Shuʿayb’s daughter(s) 148, 150-1.
Soul at Peace (al-nafs al-muṭmaʾinna) 44, 46, 53.
Soul, Evil-Enjoining (ammāra) 18.
Soul, Lamenting (al-nafs al-lawwāma) 44.
Spiritual Realm (malakūt) 42, 46, 99, 102.
Staff of Moses (ʿaṣā) 58, 64-5, 71, 78, 83, 162, 180-1, 184, 186, 211.
Star (najm) 82, 90, 99, 105, 127-30, 139, 147, 171, 191-3, 195, 205, 208.
Star, Setting-Place (pl. mawāqiʿ al-nujūm) 130, 191-3.
Subsistence (baqāʾ) 50, 74, 80, 186, 195, 207.
Supernatural event (khāriqa) 33. (see also miracle, muʿjiza).
Supreme Intellect (al-ʿaql al-akbar) 180.
T
Taste (dhawq) 14, 21, 24, 39-40, 55, 76, 96, 98, 113-4, 124, 136, 138, 140, 169,
183-4, 190, 194, 200-2, 209-10.
Throne (ʿarsh) 28, 85, 90, 99, 167, 171, 176.
Throne-bearers 167.
Thronehood (ʿarshiyya) 47.
Togetherness (maʿiyya) 89.
Treasure-Dot (nuqṭat al-kanziyya) 45, 68, 71, 82, 91, 107, 156, 163, 192, 196.
Tree, Blessed (shajara mubāraka) 32, 35, 98, 128, 178-9, 195-6.
U
ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz 25.
Union (waṣl, jamʿ) 14, 23, 25, 27, 29, 35-6, 74, 89, 91-5, 97, 99, 102-3, 106, 114,
121-2, 136-7, 139, 170, 178, 190, 200, 211.
V
Venerate, honor (taʿẓīm) 24, 29, 53, 204.
Vision (mushāhada) 70, 141, 148, 154-5, 162.
W
Wife of Moses 202.
Wife of Pharaoh (see Āsiya).
With-ness (ʿindiyya) 149, 186.
Witnessing, direct (shuhūd) 13-15, 19, 19, 24, 41-2; 44, 45, 47, 53, 59, 70, 74, 80,
85-6, 89, 96, 102, 108, 111, 124, 126, 136, 139, 146-50, 170-1, 175, 177, 180,
184, 185-6, 189-90, 193, 196, 199-201, 203, 206-7.
Zayd al-Khayr 205-6.
1 The original title of this book is Al-Tarātīl al-Ḥāʾiyya fī al-āya al-Hārūniyya al-
Mūsāwiyya (The Hāʾ-Readings of the Hārūn and Mūsā Verses). It was
published in Casablanca by Maṭbaʿat Ṣināʿat al-Kitāb, 2016. This translation
was made possible through the generous support of Saif Islam, Saad Ansari, El
Mehdi Amine Boutayeb, Afifa Rahman, and Tarek Ghanem.
2 Q Luqmān 31:15. The translations of Qurʾānic verses are from The Study
Quran, with some modifications.
3 Q Tawba 9:119.
4 Q Zumar 39:69.
5 Ṭabarānī, al-Muʿjam al-awsaṭ, 3319; Abū ʿĪsā al-Tirmidhī, Sunan al-Tirmidhī,
2:599.
6 Q Ṭā Hā 20:96.
7 According to The Study Quran, the verse a handful [of dust] from the
footsteps of the messenger (Q 20:96) refers to the tracks of dust or sand left
behind by the “horse of life” (faras al-ḥayāt), upon which the Archangel
Gabriel was riding when he was sent to take Moses to meet God at Mt. Sinai, an
event witnessed by the Samaritan. The Samaritan took some of this dust and
noticed that whenever this dust was placed upon something, it would become
spirit, flesh, and blood; that is, it would become a living thing. (See the Qurʾān
commentaries of Zamakhsharī and Qurṭubī). The Study Quran, p. 802.
8 Relevant passages from The Study Quran are worth citing for more context
concerning the verse Q 20:87: They said, “We did not fail our tryst with thee
 of our own will, but we were laden with the burden of the people’s
ornaments. So we cast them [into the pit], and thus did the Samaritan
throw also.” The Israelites’ response indicates that they were tricked by the
Samaritan. According to some commentators, the people’s ornaments refers to
the heavy jewelry lent to the Israelites by the Egyptians before the latter were
destroyed, and which was therefore unlawful for the Israelites to keep. From a
spiritual point of view, the burden of the people’s ornaments can represent
worldly riches or wealth, which becomes a kind of spiritual “burden” for people
by giving them a false sense of security and immortality that weakens their
sense of reliance upon God and their ultimate return to Him, as in 104:1– 3:
Woe unto every slandering backbiter who amasses wealth and tallies it,
supposing that his wealth makes him immortal . See also 18:7– 8c; 18:46c.
Aaron told the Israelites that these ornaments were a source of religious
defilement (najas) and thus were sinful to keep; he ordered them to throw these
ornaments into a pit until Moses returned, which they all did. Alternately, some
have said that it was the Samaritan who ordered them to throw the ornaments
into the pit, telling them that they should wait to see what God wants to do with
the ornaments. Then, without their knowledge, the Samaritan lit the pit on fire
and used the now malleable ornaments to form the golden calf. The Study
Quran, pp. 800-801.
9 This is a reference to the verse, And the shank intertwines with the shank (Q.
75:29). It also represents how Arabic letters join together, the middle Lām of the
Divine Name intertwining with the letters before and after it to make an
unbroken line.
10 Q Furqān 25:63-67.
11 Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, 2:560.
12 Q Jāthiya 45:23.
13 Ṭabarānī, Al-Muʿjam al-awsaṭ, 5:328.
14 Dhahabī, Al-Kabāʾir, 468.
15 Q Dhāriyāt 51:50.
16 Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, 1:393.
17 Q Qaṣaṣ 28:88.
18 Q Isrāʾ 17:23.
19 Q Ghāfir 40:15.
20 Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, 1:73.
21 Q Āl ʿImrān 3:31.
22 Q Baqara 2:257.
23 Q Nūr 34:34.
24 Abū Dawūd, Sunan, 2:791.
25 Q Aʿrāf 7:38.
26 Q Yūnus 10:65.
27 Q Zumar 39:3.
28 Tirmidhī, Sunan, 2:683.
29 Q Baqara 2:257.
30 Q Māʾida 5:67.
31 Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, 2:972.
32 Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, 2:624.
33 “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth
corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: 20: But store for yourselves
treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves
do not break through nor steal.” Matthew 6:19-20.
34 Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, 3:1319.
35 Q Tawba 9:128.
36 The treasury of the Alif refers to the dot above the Alif, which the Shaykh calls
the Dot-Treasure (al-nuqṭa al-kanziyya).
37 The Arabic word for love (ḥubb) begins with the letter Ḥāʾ.
38 When the initial Alif of the Name is omitted, what remains is ‫ﻟﻠﻪ‬, read as
liʾLlāh.
39 Q Maryam 19:53.
40 Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, 2:733.
41 Q Aʿrāf 7:143.
42 Q Aʿrāf 7:150.
43 Q Ṭāhā 20:98.
44 Ibn Mājah, Sunan 1:3.
45 Composed of the letter Bāʾ, ‘through’, and the letter Yāʾ, ‘me.’
46 Reference to the Holy Saying (ḥadīth qudsī) “I was a hidden treasure longing
to be known, and so I created mankind, and through Me they came to know
Me.”
47 Aḥmad, Musnad 18,028; Dārimī, 2:533.
48 Q Baqara 2:67.
49 Q Raʿd 13:33.
50 Q Raʿd 13:63.
51 Q Raʿd 13:65.
52 Q Anʿām 6:103.
53 Ṭabarānī, al-Muʿjam al-kabīr, 19:200.
54 Q Maryam 19:53.
55 Aḥmad. Musnad, 7:3949.
56 Q Rūm 30:30.
57 Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, 1:259.
58 Aḥmad, Musnad, 6:3901.
59 Q Shuʿarāʾ 29:63.
60 Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, 3:1319.
61 Q Ṭā Hā 20:39.
62 Ṭabarānī, Al-Muʿjam al-awsaṭ, 6:221.
63 Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, 1:351.
64 Tirmidhī, Sunan, 2:889.
65 Q Naḥl 16:66.
66 Q Qāf 50:9.
67 Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, 3:1067.
68 Tirmidhī, Sunan al-Tirmidhī, 1:290.
69 Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, 2:829.
70 Al-Rabīʿ, al-Jāmiʿ al-Saḥīḥ: Musnad al-Imām al-Rabīʿ, 6.
71 Q Baqara 2:30.
72 Q Baqara 2:31.
73 Q Ṭā Hā 20:38.
74 Q Ṭā Hā 20:38-39.
75 Q Anbiyāʾ 21:30.
76 Q Ghāfir 40:65.
77 Q Qaṣaṣ 28:88.
78 Q Zumar 39:21.
79 Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, 2:620.
80 Q Aʿrāf 7:107.
81 Q Ṭāhā 20:30.
82 Q Baqara 2:248.
83 Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, 3:1267.
84 Q Qaṣaṣ 28:9.
85 Būṣīrī, Itḥāf al-khiyara, 6:235.
86 Būṣīrī, Itḥāf al-khiyara, 1:84.
87 Q Ṭāhā, 20:5.
88 Q Āl ʿImrān 3:191.
89 Q Āl ʿImrān 3:191.
90 Bukhārī, kitāb al-istiʾdhān, 5786.
91 Q Fuṣṣilat 41:53.
92 Q Isrāʾ 17:70.
93 Q Jāthiya 45:13.
94 Q Ṭāhā 20:39.
95 Q Ṭāhā 20:40.
96 Q Anʿām 6:122.
97 Q Anʿām 6:122.
98 Q Fāṭir 35:28.
99 Tirmidhī, Sunan, 2:794.
100 Ibn Ḥibbān, Al-Majrūḥīn min al-muḥaddithīn, 2:372.
101 Q Ḥadīd 57:3.
102 This verse is ascribed to the pre-Islamic poem Abū l-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī.
103 Q Qamar 54:50.
104 Q Yā Sīn 36:30.
105 Q Anʿām 6:122.
106 Tirmidhī, Sunan, 2:673.
107 Q Ḥajj 22:5.
108 Q Anbiyāʾ 21:30.
109 Aḥmad, Musnad, 2:864.
110 Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, 1:223.
111 Q Ḥadīd 57:21.
112 Ḥākim, Mustadrak, 1:91.
113 Ṣanʿānī, Muṣannaf, 3:363.
114 Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, 1:73.
115 Ibid., 1:211.
116 Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, 2:680.
117 Aḥmad, Musnad, 12:6553.
118 Q Qaṣaṣ 28:15.
119 Q Kahf 18:82.
120 Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, 3:1319.
121 Q Māʾida 5:54.
122 Q Dhāriyāt 51:56.
123 Q Nūr 24:39-40.
124 Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, 2:824 (with “the believer is the mirror of the believer”).
125 Albānī, al-Silsila al-ṣaḥīḥa, 3367.
126 Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Jāmiʿ bayān al-ʿilm wa faḍlih, 925.
127 Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, 3:1314.
128 The words nafs (soul, self) and nafas (breath) are very closely related in
Arabic.
129 Allusion to Q Ibrāhīm 14:48: The Day the earth will be changed into other
than the earth, and so too the heavens, and all shall come forth to God, the
One, the Supreme.
130 Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, 3:1319.
131 The Qurʾānic phrase mawāqiʿ al-nujūm (Q 56:75) refers both to the positions
of the stars and to the successive revelations of the Qurʾān over the course of the
Prophetic era.
132 Reference to the hadith describing how during the expedition of Tabūk, the
Prophet was told of a man approaching from the distance, and said, “Be Abū
Dharr!,” and indeed it proved to be him. Dhahabī, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ, 2:65.
133 Q Najm 53:3-4.
134 Q ʿAlaq 96:1.
135 Tirmidhī, Sunan, 2:683.
136 Q Ibrāhīm 14:4.
137 Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, 1:325.
138 Q Fuṣṣilat 41:35.
139 Q Fāṭir 35:32.
140 Qazwīnī, Al-Tadwīn fī akhbār Qazwīn, 2:128.
141 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:21.
142 Q Āl ʿImrān 3:175.
143 Q Qaṣaṣ 28:24.
144 Q Qaṣaṣ 28:24.
145 Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, 2:1094.
146 Q Qaṣaṣ 28:26.
147 Q Aʿrāf 7:12.
148 Ibn Ḥibbān, Ṣaḥīḥ, 218.
149 The son of Shaykh al-Hibrī of Morocco.
150 Ibn Ḥibbān, Ṣaḥīḥ, 218.
151 Q Kahf 18:65.
152 Q Baqara 2:60.
153 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:21.
154 Q Aḥzāb 33:39.
155 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:83.
156 Q Ḥijr 15:36-38.
157 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:23.
158 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:23-24.
159 Q Āl ʿImrān 3:191.
160 Ṭabarānī, Al-Muʿjam al-awsaṭ, 6:250.
161 Q Fuṣṣilat 41:53.
162 Q Ṭāhā 20:5.
163 Q Fajr 89:22.
164 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:23.
165 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:24.
166 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:24.
167 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:25.
168 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:26.
169 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:27.
170 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:28.
171 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:28.
172 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:29.
173 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:30.
174 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:31.
175 Q Zukhruf 43:54.
176 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:32.
177 There is a play on words here between the noun ʿaṣā (staff) and the verb ʿaṣā
(disobeyed).
178 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:46.
179 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:44.
180 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:46.
181 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:50.
182 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:49.
183 Tirmidhī, Sunan, 2:613.
184 Q Shuʿarāʾ 26:51.
185 Q Aʿrāf 7:143.
186 Q Ṭāhā 20:72-73.
187 Q Ṭāhā 20:72-73.
188 Q Wāqiʿa 56:75-80.
189 Q Najm 53:1.
190 Q Muṭaffifīn 83:18-21.
191 Q Ṭūr 52:1-7.
192 Marqūm can also mean “written” or “dotted.”
193 Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, 1:16; Baghawī, Sharḥ al-sunna, 1:214; Suyūṭī, al-Jāmiʿ al-
ṣaghīr, 2712.
194 Aḥmad, Musnad, 4:1828.
195 Aḥmad, Musnad, 11:5947.
196 Q Ṭāhā 20:10.
197 Q Ṭāhā 20:11-12.
198 Ṭabarānī, al-Muʿjam al-awsaṭ, 6:139; Aḥmad, Musnad, 19587.
199 Q Ṭāhā 20:41.
200 Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, 1:91.
201 Haythamī, Majmaʿ al-zawāʾid, 7:197.
202 Q Raḥmān 55:26-27
203 ʿAbd al-Barr, Jāmiʿ bayān al-ʿilm wa faḍlih, 925.
204 Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ, 2:635.
205 Aḥmad, Musnad, 2:864.