Regarding the Spiritual Journey Towards the Glorious Lord and the Significance of This Journey

O slave of God, know that God, the Exalted, created man only in order to enable his heart or spirit to make the journey towards Him and to attain communion with Him, and to observe His Glory and Beauty, which is the ultimate end of all purposes and goals and the end of all bounties and gifts. The world and whatsoever in it, as well as the other world and whatsoever is in it, have been created for the same purpose. The advent of the prophets and messengers and the revelation of the Quran and the other scriptures ‑ all are meant to fulfil the same pur­pose. As God says:

﴾And I did not create the jinn and the human kind except that they should serve (or worship)Me﴿¹.

Ibn Abbas (May God be pleased with him) said that here li ya'budun (that they may serve Me) means li ya`rifun (that they may know Me). That is, all have been created in order to know Me. Accord­ing to a sacred tradition (hadith qudsi), God has said:

I was a hidden treasure, then I wished to become known. Then I created the creation, so that I may be known.

But as to the meaning of this journey, know that man's heart is confronted with veils, obstacles and great distances (of separation from God).

There are also for it degrees, stages and stations of proximity to God. If one does not overcome the hurdles of the path, one cannot attain any degree of proximity to God.

The Sacred Lord (Hadrat al‑Quds) will not be revealed until and unless he tears away the veils of the self (hujubal‑nafs). So the first veil, which is the cause of separation from the Almighty Lord (Hadrat al‑Izzah) is ignorance regarding Him, ascribing of partners to the One (shirk), and doubt in His attributes of Glory and Perfection. All this amounts to the negation (kufr) to God, the Exalted, which is the greatest and the darkest of all veils, as God has said:

﴾Surely Allah does not forgive that partners should be ascribed to Him﴿².

Se it is essential for the seeker of God to change the darkness of ignorance of his heart into illumination by means of the light of knowl­edge, to attain the light of certainty (yaqin) by removing the darkness of doubt, to reach Tawhid by coming out of the darkness of polytheism, and to attain the light of faith by freeing himself from the perplexity of negation. Otherwise his body and soul will remain in eternal darkness and damnation in the lowest levels of hell, which God has ordained for the unbelievers, infidels and the enemies of God.

The second stage on the path of attaining proximity to God is that of obedience (ta'ah) and servitude (ubudiyyah) to Him, for God has commanded: O mankind, worship your' God! Moreover, the Prophet (peace be upon him and his household) has narrated from the Exalted Authority that He has said:

Those who seek nearness to Me do not succeed in attaining their goal except in proportion to their fulfilment of all that I have made obligatory for them. My servant always seeks nearness to Me by means of the nawafil (supereroga­tory acts of worship) until he attains to My love for him.

Hence, whoever really knows his Master (Mawla) must obey Him, and whoever has discovered his Lord must worship Him, otherwise he will remain in the darkness of sins at the levels of blasphemy, for sin is one of the stages of remoteness (bu`d) from God and obedience is a means to His nearness.

The third of the stages of nearness is good conduct. Therefore, it is for the seeker of Haqq to transform his unworthy conduct into a praiseworthy one, because every praiseworthy conduct is considered to be a means of nearness to the Lord. As every moral vice is a step in the direction away from Him and which incites His displeasure, the true seeker is obliged to turn himself from the darkness of pride to the light of humility, from the meanness of jealousy to the virtue of affection and compassion, from the baseness of stinginess to the loftiness of magnanimity, from the dark abyss of ingratitude to the bright heights of gratitude, from the darkness of hypocrisy to the light of sincerity, from the desert of attachment to superficial beauty and riches of the corporeal world to the garden of love and reliance upon the Lord of the heavens and the earth, from the darkness of (false sense of) security (and unawareness) to the light of the fear of God, from the obscurity of despair (and distrust) to the light of hope and trust, from the shadows of wrath and anger to the light of patience and tolerance, from the darkness of impatience and anxiety while facing adversity and calamity to the light of patience and unconditional surrender to the bitterness of fate, from the darkness of negligence to the light of awareness and remembrance, from the darkness of perplexity and waywardness to the light of resignation and humility, from the darkness of dependence on worldly means to the light of submission to the will of the Lord of all lords, and from the darkness of slavery of lust and sensuality to the light of obedience to the exalted Creator. Thus, this journey is one of the most important journeys, and it is obligatory for all the seekers of Divine nearness, and the seekers of the highest felicity and the eternal abode in the Hereafter, to perform this journey.

The fourth stage of the spiritual journey is that of the journey through the Beautiful Names (al‑'asma' al‑husna) and the Exalted Attributes (sifat) of Haqq. For when a seeker purifies his inner being (batin) of the causes of distance (from God) and refines and polishes his heart with the etiquettes of nearness, he will be worthy of proceeding towards the Master of the Kingdom, the effect of God's love and His grace having manifested itself in him. At this stage, there is a difference in the ranks of the awliya' and asfiya' (the elect). Abu `Abd Allah Muhammad ibn `Ali al‑Tirmidhi said: "God, Exalted and Glorious, taught His Names to His slaves, and every Name pertains to a particular (spiritu­al) domain (iqlim) and for every domain there is an authority (sultan). And every domain has its assembly, discourse, gifts and rewards that are bestowed upon the people of that iqlim. And He has assigned special stations to the hearts of the elect. It may happen that a wali stays in the first iqlim, for out of God's Names he knows only the name pertain­ing to that iqlim. It often happens that one of the awliya' has a station in the second, third, and fourth iqlim at the same time. Hence, whenever he turns towards a particular iqlim, the Name of that iqlim is conferred upon him, so that he reaches the stage of the wali who par­takes of all the Names. He is the one who is benefited by all the Names and he is the chief of the awliya’." Al‑Tirmidhi says further: "That which the common people partake of the Divine Names is their faith in these Names. As to those who are in the Middle position (ashab al‑yamin), as well as the common awliya’, their share of the Divine Names depends on the opening of their hearts (sharh‑e sadr) to these Names and the light that shines in them by means of the knowledge (ma`rifah) of the Divine Attributes. Everybody enjoys according to his capacity and the measure of spiritual light that his heart possesses. But the benefit that the elect among the awliya’ ‑ who are totally ridden of the garb of earthly attachments and clad in a new spiritual attire ‑ enjoy, com­prises of direct observation of Divine Attributes, and reception of their light within their hearts. From what our Shaykh (God's mercy be upon him) has mentioned, it appears that every wali enjoys a station specially assigned to him, which he does not surpass, and this station is accorded to him by God in accordance with his ability and capacity and the degree decreed for him by God. Hence when his heart attains to that known station, his mystical wayfaring reaches its destination and his journey culminates. In this journey there is no question of moving from one place to another, neither does it refer to a wayfarer's move­ment in space nor that of the destination sought. For God, the Exalted, is closer to a person than his own jugular vein. Here, by `journey' is meant the removal of the veils that obstruct the vision of the heart and the light of Divine Attributes from shining in the wayfarer's heart. This is the same journey for which man has been created.


* Adab al-Suluk: A Treatise on Spiritual Wayfaring by: Shaykh Najm al-Din Kubra. The Persian translation by Husayn Muhyi al-Din Qumshehi was published in Jawidan Khirad (Sophia Perennis, The Bulletin of the Islamic Iranian Academy of Philosophy), Vol. IV, No. 2, Autumn 1981, pp. 16-26. `Ali Baqirshahi, who has translated this tract from the excellent Persian translation into English, is a Ph. D. student at the Department of Philosophy, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India. Published by: al Tawhid Islamic Journal, vol VIII, No. 4
Qum - The Islamic Republic of Iran, chapter 1.

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