The Heart’s Capacity and Misdirected Affection
Know, O human! The Most High Allah has placed within your chest a heart capable of encompassing the entire universe, yet delicate enough to hold only one Beloved. The heart is inherently needy of love and attachment. However, due to ignorance, humankind spends this boundless capacity for love on transient worldly things: money, power, fame, or appearances. The profound lamentation hidden within the depths of the Makâmât-ı Şâh-ı Nakşibend work is for shattering and discarding these false idols (the created world). In a heart that is in Allah’s presence, absolute love for anyone other than Him cannot reside. As Imam Ghazali (may Allah have mercy on him) said, worldly loves in the heart are millstones around the neck of the traveler to the Hereafter.
The Purifying Power of Love’s Fire
In the Sufi path, the most stubborn illnesses of the ego cannot be fully treated with mere intellectual knowledge or purely formal worship. The only power that can eradicate them from their roots is the “Divine Love” fire. When love for Allah falls into a heart, that fire burns away all worldly desires, fears, and arrogance to ashes. The themes of “love and affection” in the Makâmât texts are about the individual disregarding their own existence on the path of the Beloved (Allah). The lover does not hesitate to sacrifice his sleep, does not complain when hungry, nor is he afraid of the censure of people. For he has long forgotten the cold face of the world with the fervor of the Divine fire within him.
Freedom from Worldly Attachments
A true lover lives in the world but is not of it. Even if he possesses wealth, that wealth does not enter his heart; even if he loses everything at once, his face will not fall. For he has found the true Treasure – the love of the Creator. For a servant who loves Allah, even the rivers or palaces of Paradise become secondary to the ultimate goal; his only cry is the call, “I need You, I need You.” The end of transient loves is separation, sorrow, and regret. However, love for Allah, Who is Eternal, carries humanity beyond death into eternal union (meeting) and endless faithfulness.
Union: The Price of Meeting the Beloved
O heedless one! Love cannot be pursued freely. There is a price for Divine affection; it is to relinquish one’s own desires and offer unconditional acceptance of Allah’s will. It is a condition of love not to complain in times of calamity, not to become arrogant in times of blessings, but to see every trial as a favor from Him. The path of Shah-i Nakshibend is the way of constantly engaging the heart with Allah through “Zikr-i Hafî” (silent remembrance), thus keeping that fire of love always alive. The believer whose heart beats with this Divine passion fears not death; for him, death is nothing more than the breaking of the cage and flight to the Beloved.