Mahk-ı külli is the khawāṣṣ (special property) of this city (mahk). (Tadbīrāt, 154)
mahv-isbāt / nafy-isbāt (3) — For — 48) Shiblī said: The tawhid (the oneness of God) of one whose nafy (negation) does not entail isbāt (affirmation) is not sound. When he (Shiblī) was asked: What is isbāt? he replied: It is to nullify the yā's (the Arabic pronoun suffixes expressing selfhood). Its meaning—Allah knows best—is this: The true muwaḥḥid (one who affirms tawhid) negates (removes) self-assertion, that is, he removes all traces of selfhood and nafs (the lower self) from his heart in everything. He abandons words such as 'I', 'to me', 'me', 'with me', 'about me', 'from me'. Even if such words come from his tongue, there is no claim of selfhood or existence in his heart. (Lumaʿ, 54)
Mahv (effacement) is to remove habitual attributes; isbāt (affirmation) is to fulfill the rulings of worship. Whoever removes from his states and actions the blameworthy traits and replaces them with praiseworthy states and actions, that person possesses mahv and isbāt. I heard the late master Abū ʿAlī Daqqāq say: One of the shaykhs said to a man: What do you efface and what do you affirm? The man could not answer. The shaykh said: Do you not know that the time is for mahv and isbāt? Whoever has no mahv and isbāt is idle and negligent. (A person must efface bad traits and affirm good ones.)
Mahv is divided into such types as effacement of errors from the outward, effacement of heedlessness from the qalb (the heart), and effacement of illness from the ruh (the spirit). In the effacement of errors, there is the affirmation of proper dealings; in the effacement of heedlessness, the affirmation of mujāhada (spiritual struggle); in the effacement of illness, the affirmation of union (wuṣla). This is the meaning of mahv and isbāt according to the condition of servanthood and the servant. But the true mahv and isbāt originate from divine qudra (power). True mahv is what the Real (God) veils and negates; true isbāt is what the Real clarifies and manifests. Both mahv and isbāt are in the will of the Exalted Allah. (Qushayrī, 42)
The Sufi is one whose thought never goes beyond his step. That is, the Sufi is wholly present. Wherever his qalb is, his body is there; wherever his body is, his qalb is there. Wherever his foot is, his speech is there; wherever his speech is, his foot is there (he speaks in accordance with the maqām (spiritual station) he is in). The sign of presence without absence is just this. However, this contradicts the definition that says the Sufi is absent from his nafs and present with the Real (God). But we say (to resolve this contradiction): No, the Sufi is present both with the Real and with his nafs. This is nothing but jamʿ al-jamʿ (the union of unions). For this is the state in which there is no seeing of the nafs. Since there is no absence from the nafs, a state of presence without absence is realized. This is exactly what Shiblī said: The Sufi is with Allah in both worlds and sees nothing other than Allah. In sum, the servant’s existence is other than Allah. When the Sufi sees nothing other than Allah, he does not see even his own self. In the state of nafy and isbāt, he becomes completely annihilated (fanāʾ) from himself. (Hujwīrī, 48)
Nafy is the negation of human attributes; isbāt is the affirmation of the qudra (power) of the Real (God). For mahv…