The First Treaties

Among the things he wrote to some of his friends, he said (May Allah be pleased with him):

Now then, the beginning is the places where endings are revealed, so that whoever beings with Allah ends up with Allah. He is the one you love and rush to in whatever occupies you, and He is the one you prefer in whatever you turn away from. Whoever is certain that Allah seeks him insincere in seeking Him. He who knows that all matters are in Allah’s hands is recollected through trust in Him. Indeed, it is inevitable that the pillar of this world’s house of existence is destroyed and that its precious things be stripped away. For the intelligent man is more joyous over the permanent than he is over evanescent. His light rays out, glad tidings have come to him. Thus, he turns away from this world, takes no notice of it; shuns it all together.

He does not, therefore, take it as a homeland, nor does he turn it into a home, but rather, while in it he arouses his fervor towards Allah and seeks His help in going to Him. His determination, a riding-mount, is restless and ever on the move till it comes to kneel down in the Presence of the Holy (hadrat al-quds) on the carpet of intimacy, the place of reciprocal disclosure (al-murfaataha), confrontation (al-muwaahaja), companionship (al-mujaalasa), discussion (al-muhaadatha), contemplation (al-mushaahada), and viewing (al-mutaala’a).

The Presence is the nesting-place of the hearts of initiates: they take refuge in it and dwell in it. Then, when they descend to the heaven of obligations and earth of varied fortune, they do so with authority (al-idhn), stability (at-tamkeen), and profundity of certitude (al-yaqeen). For they have not so descended to obligations through improper conduct or forgetfulness, nor to fortune through passion and pleasure; but instead, they have entered therein by Allah for Allah and from Allah to Allah.

“And say: My Lord, make me enter a truthful entering, and make me go forth a truthful going forth,” [Quran 17:80] so that I will see Your strength and power when you make me enter, and will submit and conform myself to You when You make me go out. Give me authority from You, an ally that helps me or that helps others through me, but not one that goes against me: one that helps me against self-regard and extinguishes me from the realm of my senses.

The Second Treaties, next