It is connected with this. Thus, the mālik (possessor) is with the mulk (dominion), and the mulk is with the mālik. (Futūḥāt, TI, 223)
According to the Sufi community, ḥurriyyet (freedom) is to be liberated from everything in every respect. Thus, a person becomes free from everything except Allah. In our view, this is the effacement of the attribute of servanthood by the attribute of the Real (al-Ḥaqq). This occurs as follows: when the Real becomes the hearing, seeing, and all the faculties of His servant, that person is no longer (an ordinary) servant. With an existence in which the Real has established the very essence of this person and has removed from him these attributes, he becomes a servant by means of these attributes; otherwise, the Real cannot be possessed. In this context, the servant is free. ḥusn-kubh (good and evil). In this, it does not mean that he is from the very essence of the Real that is not described by these attributes. His essence is the Real. The attributes of the Real are not the same as the essence of these servants. In the hadith, the phrase 'Kuntu samʿahu' (I become his hearing) — by the presence of the pronoun 'his' — establishes the person's very essence. This state is his essence. However, the attribute of the Real is not the same as the Real's essence (in essence, the servant is a servant, and Allah is Allah, but Allah has taken upon Himself to be the attributes of His servant; the attributes are not the Essence itself). In this ḥāl (spiritual state), the freedom of this person is also established.
He (the servant) is the locus of the rulings (governance, authority) of these attributes. These attributes are the very essence of the Real, befitting His majesty, and are not other than Him. The attribute of the Real, Glorified is He, is not the attribute of the servant. This person, in terms of his essence, is He (Allah), but in terms of his attributes, he is not (since he originates from Allah in essence, he is He, but due to his own attributes, he is not). (Futūḥāt, TI, 491)
Freedom is to be saved from being a slave to anyone other than Him. There are three levels of this: the freedom of the common people is from desires; the freedom of the khawāṣṣ (the elect) is from the things they desire, in order to efface their wills in the will of the Real; and the freedom of the most elect of the elect is to be liberated from forms and traces so that they may be annihilated in the manifestation of the Light of Lights. (Kāshānī, 58; Jāmiʿ, 81)
Freedom is among the technical terms of the people of ḥaqīqa (inner reality). It is to leave servitude to the cosmos and its desires, and to sever all attachments. In this regard, Ibrāhīm Edhem said: The free one is the person who departs from the world before leaving the world. The sign of a free person is that the distinction between worldly and otherworldly matters falls from his heart (in his eyes, the affairs of this world and the next are the same). Such a person can be captivated neither by the long hopes of this world nor of the next. Just as the Prophet said: 'I have made my soul abstain from the world. Thus, in my sight, the stones and gold of this world are the same.' (Muṣannaf, VI, 170; Ṭabarānī, III, 266; Mubārak, 106)
The free person influences the entire cosmos, whether it be this world or the next, but has no personal desire, aim, goal, or share. The station (maqām) of freedom is a noble and magnificent station. Freedom is in the service of the poor. (Jāmiʿ, 184)