Concerning the States of Those Who Attain Realization
This chapter consists of six sections:
Section one: on trust (tawakkul)
Section two: on resignation (rida)
Section three: on submission (taslim)
Section four: on tawhid
Section five: on ittihad
Section six: on wahdah.
Section One: On Tawakkul
God, the Glorious and the Exalted says:
Put you all your trust in God, if you are
believers. (5:23)
Tawakkul means to entrust someone with
something. Here tawakkul on behalf of a servant
means his entrusting his affairs to God, the
Exalted, with the conviction that He has greater
wisdom and power to determine them according to
His providence, and to be happy and satisfied
with that which He does and determines:
And whoever puts his trust in God, He shall
suffice him. Indeed God attains His purpose.
(65:3)
Satisfaction with that which God does and
causes to happen is attained by reflecting on
one's past condition, when He brought one into
existence when one knew nothing. Then He
fashioned numerous signs of His wisdom in his
creation, so much so that one would not be able
to know one out of a thousand of them in a
lifetime. Then, without any prior request, He
brought him up taking care of everything related
to his inward and outward aspects, wherewith he
can survive and grow from deficiency to
perfection. [Were one to reflect upon these
facts], he would know that whatever will happen
in the future also will not be without His
providence and will.
Thence he would trust Him, the Exalted, and
would not worry regarding the remaining matters,
being certain that that which has to be
accomplished will be done by God, the Exalted,
whether he feels agitated or not, because:
When someone puts all his trust in God, God
takes care of all his needs and provides him in
a manner that he does not reckon.
[24]
Tawakkul does not imply refraining from
making effort with the excuse that one has left
the matter to God. Rather, it means that one
should have the conviction that everything other
than God is from God and that there are many
things that happen in the world that occur in
accordance with their conditions and causes.
That is because when the power and will of Cod,
the Exalted, make one thing rather than some
other happen, that is inevitably in accordance
with the conditions and means associated with
that which takes place. Hence one should
consider oneself, as well as one's knowledge,
power and will-all of them-to be a part of the
conditions and means associated with the
occurrence of some matters that one attributes
to oneself. Hence one should devote greater
effort to matters wherein one's will and effort
form a part of the conditions and causes of
their realization-like one through whom a work
assigned to him by his Master, Creator and
Beloved, is accomplished. Such a view reconciles
jabr (predestination) and qadar (total freedom),
which arc brought into harmony, for if that work
be attributed to the Creator, it would entail
jabr and if ascribed [exclusively] to its
conditions and means that would imply qadar.
But if the matter is viewed correctly, it
will be seen that neither jabr is absolute nor
qadar, and one would discover the truth of this
statement:
Neither predestination nor independence of
causal efficiency, but a middle position between
the two. [25]
Thus one should consider oneself to be
effective (mutasarrif) in actions attributed to
oneself, with the efficiency of the means, not
the efficiency of the agent in relation to the
means. In fact, these two considerations-one of
which is in relation to the agent and the other
in relation to the means-come together [in a
synthesis]. Thus everything derives from the
agent without the means abandoning its mediating
character. This point is extremely subtle and
cannot be arrived at except with the exertion of
the intellectual faculty. Whoever arrives at
this point will know for certain that the
destiny (muqaddar) of all beings is one: that
everything that happens comes into existence at
a particular time through particular means and
causes in particular conditions, and any haste
in making it happen or an effort to delay it
beyond its time is ineffectual. He will know
himself to be a part of the conditions and means
[necessary for their occurrence], freeing
himself from attachment to the matters of the
world, to concentrate on that which relates
specifically to himself rather than to something
else. Thereat he would realize the real meaning
of the statement:
Does not God suffice His servant? (39:36)
And thereupon he would be one of the
mutawakkilun (those who put their trust in God),
and it is about him and the like of him that
this verse has been revealed:
... and when thou art resolved, put thy trust
in God; surely God loves those who put their
trust [in Him]. (3:159)
Section Two: On Rida
God, the Glorious and the Exalted, has said:
... That you may not grieve for what escapes
you, nor rejoice in what has come to you . . .
(57:23)
Rida is gratification and its fruit is love.
It entails the absence of resentment, outward
and inward, in the heart, in speech and action.
Those who are preoccupied with the outward
(ahl-e zahir) are eager that God, the Exalted,
be pleased with them, that they may remain
secure from His wrath and punishment. The
seekers of the Truth (ahl-e haqiqat) are eager
that they may remain pleased with God, the
Exalted, so that none of such various states as
life and death, survival and annihilation, pain
and comfort, felicity and wretchedness,
prosperity and poverty be contrary to their
desire, leading them to prefer one of them to
the other, for their knowing that all of them
are from the exalted Creator. The love of God,
the Exalted, is fixed in their nature, and hence
they do not seek anything beyond what He wills
and determines and are well-pleased with
whatever befalls them.
It is related of one of the sages who
possessed this station that in seventy years of
a lifetime he never said when something happened
"Had it not happened!" nor "Had it happened!"
when something didn't.
And a sage when asked concerning the effect
of rida he had found within himself answered, "I
do not find any trace of rida within myself.
Yet, if I were to be made into a bridge
extending over the hell and all the creation,
from the first to the last, were to pass over me
into paradise and I alone were consigned to
hell, it would never occur to me why I didn't
receive what others did."
And when the equality of the different
aforementioned states becomes well-established
in one's nature, that which happens accords wish
his real desire. Hence it has been said that
Everyone gets what he deserves and deserves what
he gets.' For one who has found the Truth, God's
good-pleasure with a servant is realized when
the servant's good pleasure with God is
obtained:
God being well-pleased with them and they
well-pleased with Him .... (5:I19)
Hence whenever one has an objection
concerning the occurrence of something,
whatsoever that may be, or when there is a
probability of its coming to one's mind, one
would be devoid of the station of rida.
One who possesses the station of rida is
always in a state of ease, for he has no
preferences or reservations, or rather his
preferences accord with all that happens and
doesn't happen:
. . . and God's good-pleasure is greater ....
(9:72)
That is why the angel who is the keeper of
the paradise is called Ridwan and it has been
said:
Satisfaction with fate is the greatest door
to A11ah, [26]
for everyone who attains to rida reaches
paradise and whatever he beholds is seen in the
light of Divine mercy, and:
The believer sees with the greatest light of
Allah. [27]
As God, the Exalted, is the creator of all
existents, were He to dislike something it would
be impossible for it to come into existence. And
since He has not disliked anything, [the
wayfarer] is well-pleased with everything [that
comes into existence], not regretting anything
that doesn't occur, nor feeling elated by that
which does:
Surely that is true constancy. (31:17)
Section Three: On Taslim
God, the Glorious and the Exalted, has said:
But no, by thy Lord! they will not believe
till they make thee the judge regarding the
disagreements between them and then find in
themselves no impediment touching thy verdict
but surrender in full submission. (4:65)
Taslim means submission, and here it means
the wayfarer's surrendering to God everything
that pertains to himself.
This station is higher than that of tawakkul,
for in tawakkul the matter is entrusted to God
in a manner something is entrusted to a trustee
(wakil), a state wherein one still considers the
matter as pertaining to oneself. In taslim this
attachment is severed so that the wayfarer
considers every matter related to himself as
pertaining totally to Him.
This station is also above rida, for in rida
everything that God does accords with one's
inclination, whereas in this station one's
inclination and that which agrees with it or is
against it is surrendered in its totality to
Gad, so that one has no more any inclination
whatsoever for anything to agree with it or be
against it. (then find in themselves no
impediment touching then verdict') this pertains
to the station of rida, and as to ('but
surrender in full submission') that refers to a
station higher than it.
And when the Truth-seeking wayfarer peers
into himself with a truth-finding eye, he does
not consider either ride or taslim as his
(ultimate] limit, for in each of these two
stations he has placed himself vis-a-vis God,
the Exalted, with Whom he is well-pleased and
Who is well-pleased with him, as if he were the
giver and God the receiver. These distinctions
disappear at the station of tawhid.
Section Four: On Tawhid
God, the Exalted and the Glorious, says:
And set not up with God another god ....
(17:22)
Tawhid means to consider one' and to make
one.' In the first sense tawhid in the sense of
affirming shat God, the Exalted, is One-is a
prerequisite of faith, the starting point of
gnosis
God is only one god. (4:171)
In the second sense, it is the ultimate goal
of gnosis, which is achieved subsequent to
faith. That is, when one attains certainty that
there is nothing except God, the Exalted, and
His effusion in the realm of being, and that His
effusion, too, has no independent being of
itself, turning away from all plurality he
considers ail as one and sees all as one. Thus
making all one, he passes within his soul from
the station of "He is One and there is none that
may share with Him in divinity"). to the station
of "He is One and there is none that may share
with Him in Being"
In this station, other than God becomes a
veil for him, and attention to other than God is
considered by him to be absolute shirk, and he
proclaims with the tongue of his being:
Lo! I have turned my face towards Him Who
created the heavens and the earth, as one of
pure faith, and I am not of the idolaters.
(6:79)
Section Five: On Ittihad
God, the Exalted and the Glorious says:
Therefore, invoke not with God another god,
there is no god except Him .... (28:88)
Tawhid means making one' and ittihad means
becoming one with.' There, it is "Set not up
with God another god," and here, "Invoke not
with God another god," for there is a trace of
constraint [in tawhid] which is absent in
ittihad.
Hence when the unity becomes absolute and
established within the inner self, so that there
is no attention whatsoever to duality, one would
attain to ittihad.
Ittihad is not what some shortsighted people
imagine, that it is the becoming one of the
creature with God, the Exalted Greatly exalted
is He above that!' Rather, it means seeing all
as Him, without being constrained to say that
everything other than Him is from Him and so all
are one. Rather, his vision is so illumined with
the light of His manifestation, Exalted is His
station, that he does not see other than Him,
there remaining no seer, seen, or sight, and all
become one.
The prayer of Mansur, Husayn Hallaj:
Between me and Thee, my Iness' contends with
me,
So, with Thy grace, remove my Iness' from in
between, [28]
was granted and his egohood was removed from
in between, until he could say:
I am the One that I love and the One I love
is Me.
At this stage, it is known that the one who
declared ( )"I am the Truth" and the one who
said, "Glory be to Me, how great is My majesty,"
did not claim divinity but negated his egohood
and affirmed the ipseity of Someone other than
himself, and this is the desired goal.
Section Six: On Wahdah
God, the Glorious, said:
Whose is the sovereignty this day? It is
God's, the One, the Omnipotent. (40:16)
Wahdah is unity, and this is above ittihad,
for ittihad which means becoming one-smells of
plurality, which is not there in wahdah. There,
movement and rest, contemplation and
remembrance, wayfaring and journey, deficiency
and perfection, [the distinctions of] seeking,
the seeker and the sought-all vanish, and:
When the discourse reaches God, stop!
[29]
[24]. Tafsir
nur al-Thaqalayn, vol. 5, p. 357.
[25]. Bihar al-anwar,
vol. 5, p. 17.
[26]. Al-Barqi,
Kitab al-mahasin, p. 131.
[27]. Bihar al-anwar,
vol. 67, p. 73.
[28]. Sayyid
Haydar al-Amuli, Jami' al-asrar, p. 364. The
following version of the couplet is given by
Mirsad al-'ibad (Tehran: Bungah-e Tarjumeh wa
Nashr), p. 323:
In Al-Khwarazmi's Sharh F usus al-hikam, p.
94, the following version appears:
[29]. Bihar al-anwar,
vol 3, p. 259