Sufi Classics · July 8, 2026

fāʿiliyyah (Sufi Terminology)

To die while being slaughtered is called en yenfe'anle, and its opposite is mafʿūliyyah (passivity or being acted upon). (Inshāʾ, 20) Substance (jawhar), whether eternal (qadīm) or originated (ḥādith), is defined as …

To die while being slaughtered is called en yenfe'anle, and its opposite is mafʿūliyyah (passivity or being acted upon). (Inshāʾ, 20)

Substance (jawhar), whether eternal (qadīm) or originated (ḥādith), is defined as every essence that subsists by itself (not needing other existents to persist in being), while accident (ʿaraḍ) is every essence that cannot subsist by itself (requiring other existents to persist). Under this category fall, as mentioned earlier, accidents such as form and color that you will see in this circle, as well as bodies, sciences, attributes such as qudra (power), and likewise time, place, and other nisbas (relations).

Know that this primordial substrate (hayūlānī jadwal) is the ḥaqīqa (inner reality) which God (al-Ḥaqq) created from the matter of the higher and lower existents. This ḥaqīqa is the fundamental being that encompasses all existents. It can be conceived in the mind, but it does not exist in external reality (it is not real, but an intellectual existence). Its existence consists in having an essential form, but in reality, it does not admit division, increase, or decrease among existents. Its existence arises from the manifestation of the essences of existents, whether eternal or originated. If the essences of existents did not exist, we could not conceive of it, and if it did not exist, we could not conceive of the realities (ḥaqāʾiq) of existents. Its existence depends on individuals and their detailed knowledge, and on all this knowledge. One who does not know these cannot distinguish the differences among existents. (Inshāʾ, 25)

Substance (jawhar) consists of the origin. The ultimate origin of all things is entirely the existence (wujūd) of God, Exalted is He. (Inshāʾ, 32)

May Allah, Exalted is He, illuminate your insight. Know that, by Allah's will, the first existent (mawjūd) that He brought into being, according to the doctrine of the verifiers (muḥaqqiqūn), is simple, spiritual (rūḥānī), unique, and...