BEŞİNCİ BAB · ÜÇÜNCÜ FASIL · Dokuzuncu Madde
In the ninth article, it is described how poverty and humiliation manifest in the seeker (sālik) at the third station while experiencing contraction (kabz).
Beloved! [338/b] Know that the friends of Allah have said: A heart-felt constriction afflicts the sālik at the third station, and he cannot be secure from dangers. For this station is comprehensive of the spirit (rūḥ). The rūḥ, being inclined to indifference and drawn towards freedom, desires to break free from the cage of the body and reach its true homeland, the realm of pure existence. [Indeed], it cannot accomplish this, but rather endures the heat of contraction with patience, for there are countless benefits in enduring that heat. It is even said: “If the heat and fire of the state of contraction were not present, the vile nafs, stained with sins, could not be purified, nor would the most excellent of deeds—the bestowal of Divine attraction (rahmânî cezbe)—reach hearts.”
Therefore, the greatest gift bestowed upon the seeker who has entered the path of spirituality is that his destructive animal desires, which lead to ruin, are transformed into Divine inclinations leading to salvation. It is this purification of foul traits residing in the nafs and adorning the heart with superior moral qualities (tahliye and tahliye) that constitutes true deliverance (kimyâ-yı saadet). For the aim and hoped-for goal of progress on the Sufi path (seyr ü sülûk) is to draw near to and attain union with Allah, the Lord of the realm of the unseen (melekût). The possibility of attaining this union depends—as explained above—on the lifting of the seven veils (hicāb). These seven veils are nothing but the distance between the servant and his Lord. Thus, transforming vile traits into good qualities and acquiring degrees of perfection certainly increases the spiritual nearness between the servant and his Lord.
For example, if the seeker transforms his lower-level satiety into the hunger of Divine sustenance, his sleep into wakefulness at dawn (a quality of angels), and his self-admiration and pride (ucb and kibir) into humility and poverty (zillet and fakr)—qualities of humanity—he establishes a connection for attaining spiritual nearness to his Lord. For abstaining from food and sleep—qualities worthy of praise—are attributes of the angels. Their opposites, which are qualities of beasts, are considered blameworthy. Man is between these two. If man acquires the qualities of beasts, he becomes lower than a beast. If he adopts the qualities of angels, he rises above them in degree and ascends to stations that even angels cannot reach. Humility and heartbreak stand in servitude before the degrees of Lordship (rubûbiyet) of the Most High.
*Poem:*
“Neither heaven nor angels possess what is within the blackness of the heart of Adam’s children.”
Therefore, the highest degree of perfection lies in the seeker possessing the superior qualities mentioned above. This indicates that accepting one's weakness and impotence (züll ü inkisar) is the remedy for attaining felicity. The secrets of Allah’s Lordship are concealed within a person’s awareness of his own impotence and servitude to Him. As the seeker accepts poverty and humiliation, freeing himself from attachment to others, he becomes part of the free ones (aḥrār), devoted solely to Allah.
Indeed, those who are close to God (mukarrabūn) have deemed it worthy for the soul to be swept into the refuse heaps. Thus, the seeker hides his name and reputation, almost concealing himself in the depths of the earth, clinging to the command “Die before you die” [134], walking as a living dead according to the path of the most truthful (Siddiq) Abū Bakr (r.a.). This death for the seeker becomes his natural death, so that when the angels appointed to take souls come to receive it, they greet him with kindness, compassion, and mercy, carrying away his soul from exile to its true homeland. For he has died—before dying—with an intentional death (irâdī), thereby attaining the station of annihilation (fenā) explained in this section.
The station of annihilation is a state wherein the knower, having attained it, feels no inclination towards any object whatsoever, be it attachment to possessions or love for offspring. He places no value on anything and fears no trickery or trap. It is clearly known that these states [of detachment and fearlessness] are those of the dead. Just as the realm of the barzakh is opened to the deceased, so too are the secrets of the barzakh and the world of images (misal) [339/a] revealed to these seekers. In both these realms there are branches of the unseen realm.
*Verses:*
1-This nafs did not draw sweetness from the cup of annihilation.
This intellect’s doctrine did not draw sweetness from the land of eternity.
2-Become annihilated in love, and then become annihilated from annihilation.
Let the soul that has not been annihilated in annihilation, not draw sweetness from God.
3-Seek sweetness in the heart, for he who seeks it on earth,
Draws no sweetness from a familiar one in both worlds.
4-The heart which became intimate with the Beloved, does not remember others.
It draws no sweetness from anything other than love of the Lord.
5-The servant distinguishes between poverty and the robe of shame.
That soul that has drawn annihilation and poverty from encounter [with God],
6-Death by the affliction of love is the delight of all things.
He who finds a remedy for the pain of love, draws no sweetness from it.
7-For the delights of the people of love are an affliction, O Lord!
This affliction of the soul suffices; he draws no sweetness from affliction.
In contemporary Turkish:
1- This nafs did not draw sweetness from the cup of annihilation. The intellect’s doctrine also did not draw sweetness from the land of eternity.
2- First become annihilated in love, then be annihilated from annihilation. Let the soul that has not been annihilated in annihilation, not draw sweetness from God.
3- Seek sweetness in the heart, for he who seeks it on earth, draws no sweetness from a familiar one in both worlds.
4- The heart which became intimate with the Beloved, does not remember others. It draws no sweetness from anything other than love of the Lord.
5- The servant distinguishes between poverty and the robe of shame. That soul that has drawn annihilation and poverty from encounter,
Here's a translation of the provided text, aiming for faithfulness and preserving meaning within a classical Islamic/Sufi context:
6-To die from the pain of love is the sweetest thing in existence. He who finds the affliction of love, derives no pleasure from any remedy.
7-The delight of those devoted to love is that it is a trial from God! It arrives as a torment, and through this torment one finds joy; but he who has not experienced this torment, finds no pleasure in it.