Volume One
Before ʿUthmān, there was a scribe. He strove to write down the revelation. Whenever the Prophet (the Messenger of God, peace be upon him) recited the verses revealed to him, the scribe would immediately write them down on paper. When the light of revelation struck the scribe, certain wisdoms would arise in his heart.
The Prophet would then speak aloud exactly what had arisen in his heart. That foolish one went astray over such a small matter. He deviated and said, “Whatever the Prophet, who receives light from Allah, says—those very truths are arising in my own heart as well.”
The light of his thought struck the Prophet, and Allah’s wrath descended upon the soul of the scribe. He left both his post as scribe and the religion. He became hostile, bearing a grudge against Muṣṭafā (the Messenger of God, peace be upon him) and the religion. Muṣṭafā said, “O stubborn disbeliever! If the light were truly from you, why have you now become pitch black?
If you were the source of Allah’s river, you would not have opened the dam of such black water and let it flow.” The thought, “Let not my honor be worth a penny in the eyes of others,” sealed his lips. Because of this, he burned inwardly. Yet, what is astonishing is that he could not even repent (tawba). He would sigh, but his sighs were of no use. The sword had come and severed the head. Allah has made honor, shame, and modesty a piece of iron weighing a hundred batmans. Many people are bound by invisible chains!
Pride and disbelief (kufr) have so tightly bound that path that one possessed of pride and kufr cannot even openly sigh! Allah said, “We have put shackles around their necks, and they are up to their chins, so their heads are forced up and they cannot look down.” (Qur’an 36:8) These chains are not outside of us.
“And We have put a barrier before them and a barrier behind them, and We have covered them up, so that they cannot see.” (Qur’an 36:9) Yet, the one afflicted with this state cannot perceive the meaning before or behind him. The severity of that meaning which stands before him is not apparent. For such a person does not know that he has been established by the effect of divine decree and destiny (qadāʾ and qadar).
Your beloved veils the face of the true Beloved… your murshid (spiritual guide) prevents you from listening to the words of the true murshid. How many disbelievers (kufr) are there who are in love with the religion! Yet honor, pride, and such—these are their meanings, their spiritual states (ḥāl).
This is a hidden bond, but worse than iron. An iron chain can only be broken by an axe… Breaking or removing an iron chain is at least possible. But for a bond tied from the unseen, no one can find a remedy. If a man is stung by a bee, his nature immediately strives to remove that harm.
This too is a bee sting, but it arises from your own being, from you yourself. Thus, the grief grows stronger, and the affliction never passes. I wish to open this up and explain it well, but I fear it would cause despair.
No, do not despair—love Allah who answers that cry, and cry out to Him! O Allah, who loves to forgive, forgive us! O Healer even of the oldest calloused afflictions, pardon us! The reflection of wisdom into his heart led that evil one astray. Do not see yourself, lest this vision stirs up dust from you.
Brother, the wisdom flowing to you is “from Allah’s Abdāl (a class of saintly ones), it is a loan to you.” He found a light within himself, but that light struck from the threshold of kings. Be grateful, do not be proud, do not exalt yourself, listen, and never see yourself. Alas, a hundred thousand times, for this borrowed state has distanced communities from their true community.
Let me be a servant to the one who does not think he will be seated at the head of the table in every station. For a man to reach his home one day, he must abandon many stations. Iron has become red-hot, but in reality it is not red; this redness is a borrowed color given by the fire to the iron.
If the glass in the window or the house is illuminated and gives off light, do not think it is inherently radiant; understand that the radiance is from the sun. Every door, every wall may say, “I am radiant; I do not shine with another’s light. I am the one who shines.” But the sun says, “O unripe one! Just let me set, and you will see what you are.” The greenery may say, “We have grown green by ourselves, we are joyful, we keep smiling; this exaltedness has been with us from pre-eternity.”
But the summer season says to them, “O communities, let me pass, and then see yourselves.” The body boasts and acts coy because the spirit (ruh) has hidden its strength, its arms and wings. The spirit says to the body, “O refuse! Who do you think you are? You lived a day or two with my light; your coquettishness and airs cannot be contained in the world. Just wait; let me depart from you, and you will see.”
Those who loved you excessively will bury you in the grave; they will make you food for ants and snakes. How many times have there not been those who were willing to die before you? Yet, they block their noses from your stench!” Speech, sight, hearing—all are the light of the spirit. The sparkling in water is the gleam of fire. Just as the light of the soul strikes the body, so too does the light of the Abdāl strike my soul. When the light of that Abdāl, who is the soul of the soul, withdraws from the soul… the body becomes as lifeless as a corpse. Know this: I lay my head on the ground so that this word of mine may bear witness on the Day of Resurrection.
On the Day when the earth is shaken with a mighty shaking, this earth will bear witness to the states of people. It will declare openly the news it had concealed. The earth and the thorns will speak. The philosopher, according to his own opinion and conjecture, denies this. Say to him: Go, strike your head against that wall and see!
The perceptions of the people of the heart (qalb) hear the speech of water, earth, and clay. The philosopher denies the moaning of the Ḥannāna pillar. For he is unaware of the perceptions of the awliyāʾ (friends of God), a stranger to them. He says, “The reflection of love in people creates many illusions and shows them these things.” Yet this idea is but the reflection of his own corruption and kufr.
This denial is an illusion that comes from his own thought, from the corruption in his belief. The philosopher denies the jinn and the shayṭān, but as soon as he denies them, he becomes the plaything of a jinn or a shayṭān. O philosopher, if you have not seen the shayṭān, look at yourself! (You have battered your head against the wall and turned blue-black.) Does anyone turn blue like this without going mad? Whoever has doubt and misgivings in his heart has believed in philosophy and is a secret denier. Sometimes he believes in the religion, but at other times that philosophical vein turns his face pitch black.
Beware, O believers (muʾminūn); that belief in philosophy is present in you as well. There are countless scholars within you. All these seventy-two religions and sharia (the sacred law) are within you. Woe to you on the day they become manifest from you! Whoever has even a single leaf of that contrary belief will tremble like a leaf from fear on that day.
You laughed at Iblīs and the jinn, thinking yourself a good man. But when the soul (nafs) wears its skin inside out and reveals what is within, how many sighs and laments will arise from the people of religion! All the ores that appear as gold in the shop are laughing, for the touchstone of testing is hidden.
O Allah, Concealer of faults! Do not lift our veil; help us at the time of trial, save us! At night, counterfeit gold lies side by side with true gold. But gold awaits the day. In the language of its state (ḥāl), it says: “Liar, just wait. Let the day come when everyone is revealed!” The accursed Iblīs was for hundreds of thousands of years among the Abdāl, a chief among the believers. He fought with Adam out of pride and self-sufficiency, and was disgraced like filth that begins to stink at mid-morning.
The people of the world were subdued and humbled before Balʿam, son of Bāʿūr, just as they were before the Jesus of their time. They would prostrate to none but him. His sorcery would heal the sick. Because he admired and exalted himself, he fought with Moses. Then his state became as you have heard. In the world, there are hundreds of thousands of Iblīs and Balʿam who have fallen into this state, both openly and secretly.
Allah made these two famous as examples for others; He raised these two thieves up on the gallows. Otherwise, there are many more who have suffered His wrath! He destroyed these two openly and made them infamous; otherwise, those who have died by His wrath are countless!
You are delicate, refined, but for the sake of Allah’s love, do not exceed your bounds! If you encounter someone more delicate than yourself, he will sink you to the seventh layer of the earth. Why are the stories of the peoples of ʿĀd and Thamūd constantly told? So that you may know that the prophets were delicate and refined.
Being swallowed by the earth, stones raining upon their heads, their souls taken with a single cry… All these events are to make known the exaltedness of those who possess the rational soul (nafs-i nāṭiqa). Kill all the animals for the sake of man, but kill all men for the sake of one intelligent person (there is no harm in that!)
What is intellect? It is the Universal Intellect (ʿAql-i Kull) of the possessor of intellect. The partial intellect is also intellect, but it is very weak. All the wild animals that flee from people are, compared to domesticated animals, inferior. The blood of wild animals is permissible, for they flee from the exalted intellect. They have no intellect. Because they do not obey man’s command, the dignity of the wild has fallen to this degree.
So then, O strange one! If you have become like wild asses fleeing from the lion, what honor do you have? The donkey is not killed because it is useful. But if it is a wild donkey, its blood is permissible. Even though the donkey has no knowledge to protect itself from evil and lead itself to good, Allah does not excuse it.
O exalted beloved! If a human being (though intelligent) flees from that breath (the words of the prophets and the awliyāʾ) and becomes wild, how can he be excused? In short, before arrows and spears, the blood of the disbelievers (kufr) is permissible, for they are far from being useful. Their wives and children are also considered captives, for they have no intellect; they are rejected and base people. If an intellect flees from the intellect of intellects, it has passed from the company of the intelligent to the ranks of the animals.