Adab as-Salat The Disciplines of the Prayer Second Revised Edition
Chapter2
Objective Three: On the Cordial Disciplines Concerning the Place of the Musallī
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Discussed in Two Chapters
Chapter 1: About Knowing The Place
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Know that the wayfarer to Allah has, according to his existential growths [nasha'āt-i wujūdiyyah], certain places, each of which has its particular disciplines. The sālik have to know them before attaining the Salat of the people of knowledge.
The first is the natural growth and the apparent mundane stage, and its place is the earth of nature. The Messenger of Allah (s) said: “The earth is made for me a place for prostration and a purifier. ” [2]
The sālik's discipline [adab] at this stage is to make his heart understand that his descending from the invisible growth [nash'ah] and the coming down of the soul from its high and lofty place to the lowest earth of nature and his being reduced from “the best stature” [ahsan-i taqwīm] to the lowest
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of the low are for the voluntary journey to Allah and the ascension to the mi'rāj of Proximity and reaching the Court of Allah and the Threshold of His Lordship, which is the objective of creation and the final end of the people of Allah. “May Allah have mercy upon one who knows where he has come from, where he is and where he is going. ” [1]
The sālik must realize that he has come from the house of Allah's munificence [karāmat], and is now in the house of worshipping Allah, and will go to the house of Allah's recompense. The gnositc says: “From Allah, in Allah and to Allah. ” So, the sālik must tell himself, and his spirit, that the house of nature is a mosque for worshipping Allah, and that he has been brought to this world for this purpose, as Allah, the Almighty and Glorified, says:
“And I have not created the jīnn and the ins [mankind] except that they should worship Me. ” [2]
After realizing that the house of nature is the mosque for worship, and finding himself in seclusion [mu'takif] in it, he is to observe the relevant disciplines and abstain from remembering other than Allah. He is not to leave the mosque of worship, unless there is a need, such as for relieving himself, and then to return, and not to be familiar except with Allah, nor to have any affiliation with others, as these are contrary to the disciplines of cleaving to the door of
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Allah.
In this stage the knower of Allah will have certain moods [hālāt] which cannot be written down, and as the writer is out of “the innate disposition of humanity” [fitrat-i insāniyyat], indulging in the overflowing darkened sea of nature, void of truth and reality, as well as of all the stations of the sāliks and of the gnostics, the best thing for him is not to disgrace himself in the Presence of Allah, the Almighty, and his close friends, but to go past this stage and take his complaint against the evil-commanding soul to the Sacred Threshold of the Lord of Majesty, as perhaps He would extend to him a helping hand out of His general kindness and all- embracing mercy, and thus he would compensate during the rest of his life for what has passed:
“Our Lord! We have been unjust to ourselves, and if you forgive us not and have not mercy on us, we shall certainly be of the losers. ” [1]
The second stage is the state of the external and internal powers, which are the visible and invisible soldiers of the soul, whose place is the ground (earth = 'ard) of man's nature, i. e. , his structure and body. The sālik's discipline in this respect is to inform the inmost of the heart that the ground ('ard) of his nature is the mosque of divinity and the place for the prostration of the soldiers of the Beneficent [ar-Rahmān].
Therefore, the mosque should not be smeared with the filths
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or Iblīs' intrusion, and the divine soldiers should not be put under the influence of Iblīs, so that the ground ['ard] of the nature is illuminated with the Lord's light, and be freed from the darkness and the impurity of being away from the Court of the Lord.
So, let him believe that his visible and invisible powers are in seclusion in the mosque of the body, and he is to treat his body as he treats a mosque, and to look at his powers as being in seclusion in the Court of Allah. In this stage, the obligations of the sālik are more, because it is his own responsibility to undertake cleaning and purifying the mosque, as he also is to observe the disciplines of seclusion on the part of those (visible and invisible powers) that are in seclusion in this mosque.
The third stage is the sālik's cordial invisible growth [nash'ah], whose place is the invisible barzakhian body of the soul, which is created and developed by the soul itself. The sālik's discipline, in this instance, is to make himself realize that this stage greatly differs from other ones, and to preserve it is of the sālik's important duties, because the heart is the leader of those in seclusion in the Court (of Allah) , and with its corruption all of them will be corrupted: “If the scholar is corrupt, the world will be corrupted. ” [1]
The heart of a scholar is a small world, while the scholar is the heart of
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the big world. In this stage the sālik's duties increase, because the building of the mosque is also added to his responsibilities and it maybe that God forbid! His mosque will be a mosque of harm [dirār], disbelief and disunity of the Muslims. In such a mosque it is not allowed to worship Allah, and it must be pulled down.
Having established the divine invisible mosque with the hand of the Beneficent and of the guardianship, and purified it from all impurities and satanic intrusions, and begun his seclusion therein, the sālik is to strive to take himself out of his seclusion in the mosque in order to seclude in the Court of the Owner of the mosque.
And, after purging himself from self-love and getting out of his own fetters, he himself will become the house of Allah, or better to say, he will become the mosque of the Lord, and Allah will glorify Himself through Manifestation of Action, then of Names and of Essence in that mosque, and this glorification is the Salat of the Lord, saying: Subbūhun quddūs, rabb 'ul-malā'ikati war-rūh (All-Glorious, All-Holy, the Lord of the angels and the spirit). [1]
The traveler to Allah has, in all the stages of the journey, another duty to perform, neglecting which is not permissible at all, for actually it is the core of the cores and the objective of the sulūk. This duty is not to forget to remember Allah in any situation or stage, and to seek to
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know Allah from all rituals and worships, and to see Him in all phenomena, and not to let the blessings and munificence prevent him from the company [suhbat] and privacy, as this is a kind of istidrāj (being engaged in other than the Haqq).
In short, he is to take the spirit and the interior [bātin] of the worships and rituals to be knowing Allah, and to look into them for the Beloved so that the attachment of loving and being loved becomes fixed in his heart, and he may be favored with hidden graces and secret associations.
Connection
It is stated in Misbāh ash-Sharī'ah that Imām as-Sādiq ('a) said: “When you arrive at the door of the mosque, know that you have come to the door of a great King. No one may walk into His Courtyard save the purified, and no one is admitted to His Company [mujālasah] but the truthful. So, attach reverence to your coming to the ground of serving the King, as you would be exposed to a great danger if you were negligent. [1]
Know that He is capable of doing what He likes of justice and grace with you and by you. So, if He were kind to you with His mercy and favor, He would accept from you little worship and give you much reward for it. But if He demanded from you a share of truth and sincerity, to be just with you, He would block you and reject your worship, even if
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it is much. He is the doer of what He wants. Confess to His Presence your inability, shortcoming, humility and poverty, as you have come to Him to worship and to get His Intimacy [mu'ānasah].
Expose your secrets to Him, knowing that nothing, covert and overt, of the entire universe, is hidden from Him. Before Him, be the poorest of His servants. Empty your heart of all occupants that keep you away from your Lord, as He does not accept except the pure (st) and the (most) sincere. Find out in which register your name is recorded. If you tasted the sweetness of supplication and the delight of addressing Him, and drank from the cup of His mercy and generosity out of His good reception of you and response to you, then you would become suitable for His service.
So, enter, as you will have permission and protection. Otherwise, stop, like the one whose rope has snapped, whose hope has come short, and time has got the better of him. So, if Allah found in your heart true recourse to Him, He would look at you with the eye of kindness, mercy and leniency, and cause you to be successful in attaining what He likes and is pleased with, since He is generous and loves generosity for His servants who distressfully resort to Him and burn out at His door for the want of His pleasure. Allah, the Most High, says:
“Or, who answers the distressed one, when he calls
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upon Him, and removes the evil…? ” [1]
I have related the complete text of this noble speech because it is a comprehensive set of instructions for the people of knowledge and the wayfarers to Allah, who, by contemplating on it may acquire a different state.
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[2]: Wasā'il ash-Shī'ah, vol. 3, “Book of as-Salat,” sec. on “What One can Prostrate upon,” ch. 1, hadīth 8, p. 593.
[1]: Refer to footnote 141.
[2]: Sūrah adh-Dhāriyāt 51: 56.
[1]: Sūrah al-A'rāf 7: 23.
[1]: In Ghurar al-Hikam vol. 7, p. 269, it is said: “A scholar's slip corrupts the world. ”
[1]: “…[Y]our Lord prays…He says: “All-Glorious, All-Holy, I am the Lord of the angels and the Spirit”,” Usūl al-Kāfī, vol. 2, “Book of the Proof,” sec. on “Histories,” ch. on “The Birth of the Prophet (s) and his Death,” hadīth 13, p. 329.
[1]: Hāfiz says: O the wayfarer in the lane of our Beloved,
Be aware that head breaks its wall.
[1]: Misbāh ash-Sharī'ah, ch. 12, on “Entering the Mosque”. The Qur'anic verse at the end of the hadīth is verse 62 of Sūrah an-Naml (chapter 27).
Chapter 2: On Some Disciplines Concerning Permissibility [Ibāhah] Of Place
Having understood the stages of the place according to his states and existential growths [nasha'āt], the sālik is to exert his effort, in respect with the cordial disciplines of their permissibility, so that his Salat may come out of the usurping intrusions of the evil Iblīs. In the first stage he is to perform the formal disciplines of worship and servitude, and to fulfill his former promises of the world of pre-existence and the Day of Covenant, cutting Satan's intruding hand from the kingdom of his nature.
So as to establish amicable relations with the Owner of the House, and his actions [tasarrufāt] in the world of nature may not be usurping. Some of the people of good aptitude say that the inner meaning of the noble āyah,
“O you who believe! Fulfill the obligations. The cattle quadruped are allowed to you,” [2]
Is that allowing the cattle quadruped is conditioned by the fulfillment of the guardianship obligation. Noble Hadiths relate that all land is the Imām's, and that other than the Shī'ahs are its usurpers. [3] People of knowledge regard the walī al-amr (the religiously legal authority) as the owner of all kingdoms of the existence, and the stages of the visible and the invisible, and regard using them
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without the Imām's permission to be wrong.
The writer says: The accursed lblīs is the enemy of Allah, and his conducts and all the satanic intrusions in the world of nature are tyrannical and usurping. So, if the wayfarer to Allah could bring himself out of the control of that wicked one, his conduct would be divine, and his place, clothing, food, and matrimony would be permissible and clean. And as much as he remains under Satan's control, his permissibilities become less, and satanic polytheism [shirk] will affect them.
So, if man's external organs become under Satan's control, they will be Satanic organs, usurping Allah's kingdom, as the seclusion of the invisible powers in the mosque of the body can only be permissible and right when those powers are of the soldiers of Allah, in which case Iblīs' soldiers will not have the right to intrude into the kingdom of the human body, which is the property of Allah, the Exalted.
Having cut the intruding hand of Satan short off the kingdom of the heart, which is the private residence of Allah, and cleared his heart for Allah's manifestation, and excluded other than Allah, such as Iblīs, from it, the external and internal mosques and the visible and invisible places become permissible for him, and his Salats become like those of the people of knowledge, and consequently, the purity of the mosque is realized, too.
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[2]: Sūrah al-Mā'idah 5: 1.
[3]: Usūl al-Kāfī, vol. 2, “Book of the Proof,” narratives in ch. “Concerning that All Land is the Imām's,” p. 266.
Objective Four: On the Cordial Disciplines of the Time
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Discussed on Two Chapters
Chapter 1: Times of Salat
Know that the people of knowledge and of observance pay
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attention to, and take care of, the times for the Salats according to the depth of their knowledge of the Sacred State of the Lord, and according to their longing for supplication with the Creator, Honored be His Name, as these times are for supplication and meeting Allah.
Those who are attracted by the Beauty of the Beautiful, and are fond of the beauty of eternity, and are drunk with the cup of affection, and are in a state of ecstasy by (drinking) a goblet from alastu
(Am I not…? ) [1] ,
Are delivered from both worlds, closing their eyes against the regions of existence and joining the Majesty of the Sanctity of Allah's Beauty. To them the Presence is continual, and they do not forget, even for a single moment, remembrance, contemplation, perception and observance.
The people of knowledge, virtues and honorable learned souls, and of good disposition, would prefer nothing to supplication to Allah. They demand supplication and privacy with Allah. They take glory, honor, virtue and knowledge to be in supplication and remembering Allah. Should they look at the universe and the world, their look would be gnostic. In the world they are in quest of Allah and want Him.
To them, all beings are the manifestations of Allah and the charms of the Beautiful: “I love the whole world as the whole world is from Him. ” [2] They watch for the times of the Salats with all their hearts, and eagerly wait for the time of supplication to Allah,
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preparing themselves to be present at a fixed time to meet Him. Their hearts are present, and from the Presence [mahdar] they demand the Present, as they respect the Presence [mahdar] for the sake of the Present. They believe that servitude is association and sociability with the Absolute Perfect and their eagerness for worship is due to this fact.
And those who believe in the invisible and the other world, and are fascinated by the generosity of Allah, the Exalted, and who would not change the eternal heavenly blessings and the everlasting pleasures and the permanent cheerfulness for mundane perishing chances and the temporal, incomplete and suspected delights, at the times of worship which is the seed of the blessings relating to the other world they prepare their hearts and perform it whole-heartedly and anxiously.
They wait for the times of the Salats which are the times for getting the results and winning the treasures and take nothing for the eternal blessings. As their hearts are aware of the invisible world and they cordially believe in the eternal blessings and the continual pleasures of the Hereafter world, they fully utilize their time and do not waste it. Those are the owners of Paradise and the lords of grace in which they will remain forever.
Those groups that have been mentioned, and the others which have not been mentioned, obtain pleasure from worshipping itself, in proportion to their ranks and their knowledge. They never feel the heaviness of
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the obligations, but it is we, the helpless, who are in the chains of hopes and desires, and in the fetters of whims and wishes, drowned in the overflowing dark sea of the world of nature, where neither a smell of affection and love has reached the sense of smell of our spirit, nor has our heart's sense of taste tasted any delicacies of knowledge and virtue.
We are neither of the people of Gnosticism and vision, nor of the people of faith and tranquility. We take the divine worship to be a heavy obligation, and regard supplication unto Allah a burden. We trust nothing but this world, which is a manger for animals, and are attached to nothing except to this house of nature, which is the seclusion place of the unjust. The eye of our heart's insight is blind to the Beauty of the Beautiful, and the taste of our spirit is void of the taste of Gnosticism.
The master of the circle of the people of knowledge, and the gist of the people of affection and truth says: “I spend the night with my Lord Who feeds me and gives me drink. ” [1] O Lord! What a night which Muhammad (s) spent in the House of Private Intimacy with You! What food and drink were those, which You, with Your own hand, fed that honorable being and freed him from all worlds! It is proper for that master to say: “I have with Allah a time which is not
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within the capacity of any favorable angel and prophet. ” [1]
Was that time of the times of this world and the other world? Or was it the time of the Privacy of qāba qawsayn (the distance of two bows' length) and discarding the two worlds? Moses, the interlocutor with Allah, fasted for forty days and could attain a meeting with Allah, and Allah said:
“So, the appointed time of his Lord was complete forty nights. ” [2]
Yet, he could not attain a meeting like Muhammad's, and it cannot be compared with that of him. In the meeting place Moses was told:
“Take off your shoes,” [3]
Which is interpreted to mean “affection to family,” while the Seal of the Prophets was told to love 'Alī. In my heart, of this secret, there is a firebrand, of which I would not talk. You yourself, from this brief, read its detailed talk.
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[1]: This is a reference to the āyah: “And made them bear witness against their own souls: “Am I not your Lord? ” They said: “Yes, we bear witness. ” “ (Sūrah al-An'ām 6: 172).
[2]: “By the world I am pleased, since the world is pleasant by Him, I love the whole world, as the whole world is from Him. ” Sa'dī
[1]: Wasā'il ash-Shī'ah, vol. 7, p. 388, with a slight difference; Sahīh al-Bukhārī, vol. 4, “Book of Wishes,” p. 251. Mawlawī, in a couplet says: “As 'I spend the night with my Lord' became knowledge, 'He feeds and give drinks' afterwards became porridge. ”
[1]: 'Awāliyy ul-La'ālī, vol. 4, hadīth 7, p. 7; Bihār al-Anwār, vol. 18, “Book of the Prophet's History,” ch. on “Proving the Mi'rāj,” p. 360.
[2]: Sūrah al-A'rāf 7: 142.
[3]: “I am your Lord; take off your shoes,” Sūrah Tā-Hā 20: 12.
Chapter 2: On Watching Over The Time
Dear, you too, are to seize this opportunity for supplication, as available and according to the possible measure, and apply its cordial disciplines, informing your heart that the origin [māyah] of the eternal Hereafter life, the source of the spiritual virtues and the capital of the unlimited generosities are in the Proximity to, and Intimacy with, Allah, the Exalted, and in supplication to Him, especially in the Salat which is a spiritual mixture [ma'jūn] prepared by the hand of Allah's Beauty and Majesty.
It is the most comprehensive and perfect worship among all types of servitude. So, take care, at your best, to keep
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its times, and select its virtuous times, for in them is a sort of luminosity not found in other times. In those times you are to lessen, or even sever, your heart's engagements, and this can be achieved by arranging your times and assigning special times for the Salat, which guarantees the eternal Hereafter life for you, such that in those assigned times you would have nothing else to do, and the heart could have no other attachments that might rival the Salat, and the heart can be prepared and made present with ease.
Now I am going to relate some of the Hadiths about the conditions of the infallibles [the Imāms] ('a) , as needs be, so that contemplating their conditions may lead to being awake, and perhaps the importance of the situation and seriousness of the state can be recognized by the heart and it can be awakened from its sleep of negligence.
Some wives of the Messenger of Allah (s) were quoted to have said: “The Messenger of Allah (s) used to talk to us and we used to talk to him. But when the time for the Salat arrived he appeared as if he did not know us and we did not know him, as his attention was completely directed to Allah. ” [1]
It is said that Amīr al-Mu'minīn 'Alī ('a) , when it was time for the Salat, used to writhe and tremble. Asked once about his uncommon state, he said: “The time has come for
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the trust which Allah, the Exalted, offered to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they refused to carry it and were afraid of it. ” [1]
Sayyid Ibn Tāwūs (may his soul be sanctified) says in Falāh as-Sā'il, that when Imām Husayn ('a) used to perform the Wudu', he changed colors and his joints trembled. Asked about the reason, the Imām said: “When one is going to stand before the Owner of the 'Arsh, his color is ought to turn pale and his joints to tremble. ” [2]
Imām Hasan had a similar condition. [3] It is narrated that Imām as-Sajjād (the fourth Imām) ('a) used to get pale at the arrival of the time of the Wudu'. He was once asked: “What is this state which happens to you whenever you want to perform the Wudu'? ” He said: “Do you not know before whose presence I am to stand? ” [4]
If we, too, think a little and tell our veiled and discarded heart that the times of the Salats are the times of being present at the Holy Threshold of the Owner of Majesty, the times in which Allah, the Exalted, the Master of the Kings and the Absolute Great, invites His helpless and worthless servant to supplication, admitting him to His House of Generosity, so that he may win the eternal happiness and permanent pleasures and cheerfulness, we will have pleasure and cheerfulness, according to our level of knowledge when the time of the Salat arrives.
If the heart understands the
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greatness and the importance of the situation, there will be fear and dread in proportion to the extent of its understanding of the greatness. But as the hearts of the holy men [awliyā'] and their conditions are different, according to the gracious and the overpowering manifestations and feeling the greatness and mercy, sometimes their longing for the meeting, and their feeling the mercy and beauty excite them to display pleasure and cheerfulness, and they hail: “Relieve us, O Bilāl! ” [1] And sometimes (divine) manifestations of Greatness, Power and Sovereignty, drive them to ecstasy, trembling and shivering.
In short, O you helpless! The cordial disciplines of the times are in preparing yourself for entering into the Presence of the Master of this world and the Hereafter, for conversing with Allah, the Almighty and Most High. So, cast a glance at your weakness, helplessness, humility and indigence, and at the Greatness, Glory and Majesty of the Sanctified Essence, Glorified be His Majesty, in Whose Court of Greatness the prophetic Messengers and the favorite angels go into rapture, and confess their incapability, humility and wretchedness.
Having so looked, and taught your heart, it would feel afraid and you regard yourself and your worship trivial and worthless. Then, contemplate the extent of the mercy, complete kindness and all-embracing affection of His Sacred Essence, to realize that such a helpless servant, with all his impurities and wretchedness, is invited to His Sacred Court, received by the ceremonies of sending down of angels, heavenly Books and Prophets and
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Messengers ('a) , who call him to the meeting of intimacy, without this helpless possible servant having any previous aptitude, or there being imaginable, in this invitation to His Presence, any benefit for Him we take refuge in Allah or for the angels of Allah and the Prophets ('a).
It is natural, however, that the heart is pleased with this contemplation, and it is filled with hope and expectancy. Therefore, with steps of fear and hope, desire and dread, prepare yourself for the Presence and have ready the required provisions for the Attendance, the most important of which is to attend the Meeting [mahdar] with a shy and fearing heart, feeling broken, humiliated, weak and helpless, and believing yourself unworthy to worship and servitude and to be admitted into the Presence, and regarding that giving you permission to enter into worship and servitude was only because of the general mercy and the all-inclusive kindness of the One, the Almighty and Glorified.
If you put your humility before your eyes, and humbly and heartily submitted to the Sacred Essence of Allah, and if you considered yourself and your worship worthless and trivial, Allah, the Exalted, would be kind to you, raise you and bestow His graces upon you.
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[1]: Mustadarak al-Wasā'il, “Book of as-Salat,” sec. on “The Acts of the Salat,” ch. 2, hadīth 17.
[1]: Ibid. , hadīths 5 and 14.
[2]: Sayyid Ibn Tāwūs (may his soul be sanctified) has stated this point in his Falāh as-Sā'il, quoting al-Lu'lu'iyyāt, concerning the conditions of Imām Hasan ibn 'Alī ('a).
[3]: Bihār al-Anwār, vol. 77, “Book of Purification,” sec. on ”Wudū',” ch. 34, hadīth 34, p. 346, quoting Falāh as-Sā'il.
[4]: Mustadarak al-Wasā'il, “Book of as-Salat,” sec. on “The Acts of the Salat,” ch. 2, hadīth 35.
[1]: Al-Mahajjat al-Baydā' fī Tahdhīb al-Ahyā, vol. 1, p. 377. Bilāl was the Prophet's mu'adhdhin, or the caller for the Salat. Mawlawī, in a couplet, says:
“The soul is perfect and perfect is its call,
The Chosen One said: “Relieve us, O Bilāl! ”
Objective Five: On Some Disciplines Concerning Orientation
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Discussed in Two Chapters
Chapter 1: On The General Secret Of Orientation
The appearance of orientation consists of two aspects:
One is (turning to) the forefront, which is turning the face from all dispersed sides.
The other is psychological, and it is the orientation of the face towards the Ka'bah, which is the
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umm ul-qurā' (the Mother of the Towns) and the center of the extension of the earth.
This appearance has an inside, and the inside has a secret, or rather, secrets. The people of the invisible secrets distract the interior or the spirit from dispersed directions [jihāt] of the multiplicities of the invisible and visible, and direct the secret of the spirit towards being attached to the One. They regard all the multiplicities as vanished in the secret of the “Collective Oneness” [ahadiyyat-i jam'].
When this spiritual secret settles in the heart, the Haqq (Allah) appears in the heart as the Greatest Name, which is the state of “the Union of the Names” [jam'-i asmā'ī], and the multiplicities of the Names are vanished and disappear in the Greatest Name, and the heart is directed, in this instance, to the Greatest Name. And when it comes out from inside the heart to the outer visibility, the plan for annihilating [ifnā'] (all) other (than Allah) is to turn away from the east and west of the visible world, and the plan of the orientation towards the Union [hadrat-i jam'] is the orientation towards the center of the extended earth, which is Allah's hand in the earth.
As regards the traveler to Allah, who travels from the outside to the inside, and advances from the overt to the covert, he is to use this formal orientation towards the center of the earthly blessings, and discarding other diverse orientations, as a means
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for the cordial moods, and never to be satisfied with the meaningless appearance.
He is to divert the heart which is the focus of Allah's attention from the different and diverse directions, which are real idols, directing it towards the qiblah of the truth, which is the origin of the origins of the blessings of the heavens and the earth, and doing away with the custom of other [ghayr] and otherness [ghayriyyat] so as to get the secret of
“I have turned my face toward Him Who originated the heavens and the earth” [1]
to some extent, and to have in his heart an example of the manifestations and gleams of the invisible world of the (Divine) Names, so that the diverse directions and the different multiplicities may be burnt away by the divine gleam. Allah, the Exalted, would help him, and the small and big idols in the inmost corner of the heart may be destroyed by the hand of (His) guardianship. However, this is an endless story, so let me drop it and go by.
Chapter 2: On Some Of The Cordial Disciplines Of Orientation
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O you traveler to Allah, know that by turning the outer side of your appearance away from the dispersed points of the world of nature, and turning it to a single point, you have claimed two of the inborn divine dispositions, which the hand of the Invisible has hidden in your essential nature [khamīra-i dhāt], and Allah, with the hand of Beauty and Majesty, has mixed your nature [tīnat] with them, and you have shown
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these two inborn states in mundane and visible displays.
And, in order not to be deprived of the light of these two divine dispositions, you have proven that you have apparently turned away from all directions, and you solely faced the qiblah, which is the place of the appearance of Allah's hand and power. The two divine dispositions are, first, repugnance to imperfection and the imperfect, and, second, loving perfection and the perfect. These two, of which one is original and autogenic, and the other is subordinate and a shadow, are of the dispositions, which are mixed with the nature of the family of mankind without exception.
They are in the whole human species disregarding their differences in beliefs, characters, habits, temperaments, places, traditions, and whether nomads or urbans, uncivilized or civilized, learned or ignorant, godly or naturalists. In all of these the two innate dispositions are concocted, even if they themselves do not recognize them in themselves, and differ in distinguishing perfection and imperfection, and the perfect and the imperfect.
One who is brutal, bloodthirsty and murderer takes perfection in his victory in assaulting the lives and the honors of the people. He thinks blood-shedding and homicide are perfection, and he spends his life on that, while the ambitious who is in quest of rank, position and wealth in this world thinks that in these he will find perfection, and so, he adores them.
In short, everybody with an objective thinks that objective to be perfection, and
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the one who attains his objective is the perfect; so he loves it and is repugnant to any other thing. The prophets ('a) , the knowers of Allah, and the people of knowledge have come in order to take the people out of the veil and to save the light of their inborn dispositions from the darkness of ignorance, and to teach them the meaning of perfect and perfection. And, after distinguishing the perfect and perfection, there would remain no need to invite them to attend to that and neglect the others, for the light of the inborn disposition is, in itself, the greatest of the divine guidances, present in all the human species.
In this divine mixture [ma'jūn], that is, the Salat, which is the ascension to the Proximity of Allah, facing the qiblah and the central point, and giving up and turning away from other diverse directions, denote the wakefulness of the innate disposition, and the emission of the light of the disposition out of the veils.
This is a reality for the perfect ones and the people of knowledge. As to us, the people of the veil, the relevant discipline is to tell the heart that in the entire House of Realization [dār-i tahaqquq] there is no perfection nor perfect except His Sanctified Essence, the Absolute Perfect, for that Sanctified Essence is a Perfection with no imperfection, a Beauty with no defect, an Actuality with no blemish of potentiality, a Goodness mixed with no evil and a Light with
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no blemish of darkness.
In the entire House of Realization whatever there are of perfection, beauty, goodness, dignity, greatness, illumination, actuality, and happiness, are emissions of the Light of the Beauty of that Sacred Essence, and nobody has any share of personal perfection of that Sacred Essence, and no being has beauty, perfection, light, and magnificence except through His Beauty, Perfection, Light and Magnificence. In short, the splendor of the light of His Sacred Beauty illuminates the world, bestowing upon it life, knowledge and power, as otherwise, the whole House of Realization would have been in complete darkness of non-being, in the latency of non-existence and in the inside of nullity.
The one, whose heart is lighted with the light of knowledge, sees everything, other than the light of the Beauty of the Beautiful, as void, worthless and non- existing, eternally and forever. It is narrated that when the Messenger of Allah (s) heard this poem of Labīd,
“Oh, indeed, everything, save Allah, is bātil, And every pleasure [na'īm] is, inevitably, transient! ”
he said: “This is the truest piece of poetry recited by the Arabs. ” [1]
Having informed your heart about the falsity of all that is in the House of Realization, and about the perfection of the Sacred Essence, there would be no need for the heart to premeditate for turning to the real qiblah and loving the Beauty of the Absolute Beautiful, and detesting the entire House of Realization, except the manifestation of the Sacred Essence, as in fact, the very
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divine disposition in man naturally invites to that, and
“I have turned my face toward Him who originated the heavens and the earth” [1]
Becomes the motto of man's soul, heart and situation, and “I do not love the setting ones” [2] becomes his natural motto.
Thus, O poor know that the world, excepting Allah, is transient, perishing, vanishing, and bātil. None of the beings has anything by itself, and none of them in itself has any beauty, glory, light, or splendor. Beauty and splendor exclusively belong to the Essence of Allah. As the Sacred Essence is unique in Divinity and in being Necessary Existent, He is also unique in Beauty, Glory, Perfection, and particularly He is unique in existence, while the humility of essential non-existence ['adam-i dhātī] and nullity are engraved on the foreheads of the others.
So, turn the heart, which is the center of the light on the divine innate disposition, away from the different aspects of falsities, nullities and shortcomings, and direct it toward the Center of Beauty and Perfection and in your pure conscience let the motto of your disposition be what the gnositc of Shiraz says:
Our conscience accommodates none but the Beloved,
Give up both worlds to the foe, suffices us to have the Beloved.
Connection
Imām as-Sādiq ('a) is quoted to have said: “When you face the qiblah, despair of the world and of what is in it, and of the creatures and of what they are busy with. Empty your heart of whatever takes your attention
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from Allah, the Exalted. Discern with your heart the Greatness of Allah, the Glorified. Remember your standing before Him on the day when
“Every soul shall become acquainted with what it sent before, and they shall be brought back to Allah, their true Guardian” [1]
And stand on the foot of fear and hope. ” [2]
These noble instructions are for the like of us, the veiled, who are unable to keep the states of our hearts constant, join between Oneness and multiplicity and attend to both Allah and creation. Such being the case, we should despair of the world and what is in it when we turn to Allah and face the qiblah. We should also sever our expectancy from the creatures and empty our heart and spirit of whatever takes our attention from Allah, so as to be worthy of His Presence and let a manifestation of majesty appear in the secret of our spirit.
And when we gain the light of majesty according to our capacity, we are to remember our return to Allah and our standing in His Sacred Presence on the day when
“Every soul shall be acquainted with what it sent before and they shall be brought back to Allah, their true Guardian” (Sūrah Yūnus 10: 30) ,
And they shall cross out all the whims of the soul and the false deities.
Thus, in the Presence of such a Great One, of whose manifestations of Act is this House of Realization, someone like you and a poor man like
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me, must walk and stand on the foot of hesitation, fear and hope. When we see our weakness, laziness, helplessness, poverty and humility, and discern Allah's Greatness, Haughtiness, Majesty and Might, we are to feel fear and awe from the danger of eminence; and when we understand His unlimited mercy, kindness, leniency, and boundless generosities, we are to be hopeful.
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[1]: Sūrah al-An'ām 6: 79
[1]: 'Ilm al-Yaqīn, vol. 1, p. 106.
[1]: Sūrah al-An'ām 6: 79.
[2]: Ibid. , 6: 76.
[1]: Sūrah Yūnus 10: 30.
[2]: Misbāh ash-Sharī'ah, ch. 13, on “Opening the Salat”; Mustadrak al-Wasā'il, “Book of as-Salat,” sec. on “The Acts of the Salat,” ch. 2, hadīth 9.
Discourse Three: The Affinities [Muqārināt] Of The Salat
Discussed in Eight Sections
Section One: On Some Disciplines of the Adhān and Iqāmah
Discussed in Five Chapters
Chapter 1: General Secret And Disciplines Of The Adhān And Iqāmah
Know that the sālik to Allah has to announce attending the Meeting [mahdar], in the adhān, to the heart, which is the sultan of the covert and overt powers, and to other soldiers scattered throughout the visible and invisible realms. As the time of the presence and meeting has drawn near, he is to prepare them, so that, if he is of the eager lovers, he may not lose control at the sudden appearance of a manifestation; and if he is of the veiled, he may not enter the Sacred Presence [mahdar] without making ready the means and the disciplines for the occasion.
Thus, the general secret of the adhān is the announcement to the overt and covert powers and the divine armies to attend the Meeting. Its general discipline is to be aware of the greatness of the position, its significance and the majesty of the Presence and the Present, and it is the servility, helplessness, poverty, incapability, and shortcoming of the “possible” (existent) in carrying out orders and deserving to attend the Meeting [mahdar], unless the kindness
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and mercy of Allah, the Most High, extend the helping hand to make up for the shortcomings.
The iqāmah is to set up the visible and invisible powers in the Presence and to make them present in the Meeting; and its discipline is fear, awe, shyness, shame, and a firm hope in the boundless mercy. The sālik, during all the chapters of the adhān and the iqāmah, is to continually inform the heart about the greatness of the Meeting, Presence and the Present, and to continually think of his own humility, inability and shortcoming, in order to bring about (in the heart) fear and awe, while, on the other hand, he is to show to his heart Allah's vast mercy and generous kindness, in order to bring about (in it) hope and eagerness.
So, eagerness and attraction will conquer the loving hearts, and with the steps of love and affection they (the sāliks) will proceed to the Presence of Intimacy, and their hearts, by means of that invisible attraction, will, till the end of the Salat and through their love of the Presence and the Present, practice mutual embracing and fondling with remembering Allah and thinking of Him.
Imām 'Alī ibn Abū Tālib ('a) is quoted to have said: “The best of the people is the one who adores worship, embraces it, whole-heartedly loves it, touches it with his body and disengages himself for it. He would not care whether he gains his share of this
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world with difficulty or with ease. ” [1]
And the fearing hearts will be overpowered by the manifestation of the Greatness, and overwhelmed by the attraction of the Omnipotence, so that they (the sāliks) will be led to ecstasy, their hearts will melt with fear and awe, and their personal shortcomings and their feeling of humility and inability will hold them back from everything.
In a hadīth Mūsā ibn Ja'far ('a) is quoted to have said: “Amīr al-Mu'minīn ('Alī) ('a) said: “Allah has servants whose hearts are broken by fearing Him, causing them to keep silent. ” [2]
Sometimes Allah, the Exalted, manifests Himself to His perfect friends in a kind manifestation, and the attraction of love becomes their guide, as the hadīth says that the Messenger of Allah (s) used to be waiting for the time of the Salat, his longing ever increasing, until at last he would say to Bilāl (the Messenger's mu'adhdhin): “Relieve us, O Bilāl. ” [3] Sometimes He would manifest Himself through greatness and sovereignty, such that they feel they are filled with fear and awe.
Such states are related from the Messenger of Allah (s) and the Imāms of guidance ('a). Sometimes He manifests Himself in “the Collective Oneness” [jam'ī-i ahadī] according to the endurance of the hearts and the capacities of their vessels. We, the veiled, the busy with the world, the imprisoned in the prison of nature and in the chains of desires and hopes, and the deprived of the divine intellectual happiness, who, because of being drunken with
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nature, will not come back to sobriety nor get up from the deep sleep till the dawn of eternity, are out of the calculations of these divisions, and excluded from this declaration.
Thus, the disciplines of the Presence, which suit us are different, and the performance of the cordial duties has a different form. But what should be the first and foremost, before all else, is to drive out of the heart the despair of Allah's mercy, and prevent it from losing hope for His generosity, for these are of Iblīs' dangerous soldiers and of the inspirations of the human and jinn Satans. We should not imagine that those stations have been cut to suit particular persons, such that our hand of hope is too short to attain them, or man's treadings cannot reach them.
Hence, we should not mistake hand for foot, and with coldness and weakness, remain sticking to the land of nature forever. No, it is not like what has been imagined! But I still say that the special station of the perfect people of Allah is not possibly attainable by everybody. Yet, the spiritual stations and divine knowledge have unlimited degrees and many ranks. Many of those stations, sciences, states and stages are available to the (human) species, if only their coldness and weakness let them, and if only the obstinacy and fanaticism of the people of ignorance and obstinacy take their hands off the hearts of the servants of Allah, and they turn not to be
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Satans on the road of their travel to Allah.
So, the discipline of the Presence for us is that at the beginning, as we have not yet passed through the stage of sensation and the appearance, and think of nothing except the mundane greatness and splendor, while knowing nothing of the Divine Invisible Greatnesses, we have to look at Allah's Presence [mahdar] as we look at a great sultan's presence whose greatness has been realized by the heart, informing it that all kinds of greatness, majesty and glory are but manifestations of the greatness of the heavenly world which have descended to this world, and the heavenly world ['ālam-i malakūt] is of little importance compared with the invisible worlds.
Thus, we are to inform the heart that the world is the Sacred Presence of Allah, the Exalted, since He, the Glorified, is Present at all places and spaces, especially the Salat which is a special permission for attending the Presence, and a special date for meeting and intimacy with Allah, the Exalted. Now, having incited the heart to feel the Greatness and the Presence, even if at the beginning it was not so easy to do so, the heart gradually becomes familiar with it, and the imagery becomes real.
So, by observing the formal disciplines of dealing with the King of the kings and the Sultan of the sultans, and applying the disciplines of the apparent Presence, the heart will also be affected and will feel the greatness, and will gradually
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attain man's desired results. Similarly, inciting love and adoration can be achieved by means of perseverance and austerity.
So, at the beginning, one should exhibit the formal mercies and sensual blessings of Allah, the Exalted, to the heart, and then introduce to it the state of Mercifulness, Compassionateness and Bountifulness, until the heart gradually becomes intimate, and the exterior affects the interior, and the kingdom of the interior is illuminated by the effects of the Beauty, and then the desired results will be achieved.
If a man carried out the matter and strove in the way of Allah, the Exalted, He would help him and save him by His invisible hand from the darkness of the world of nature, and would throw the light of His Beauty to the dark earth of his heart, and turn him into a spiritual heaven:
“And whoever does a good deed, We add unto its good for him. Surely Allah is Forgiving, Thankful. ” [1]
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[1]: Wasā'il ash-Shī'ah, vol. 1, “Book of Purity,” sec. on “Preliminaries to Worships,” ch. 19, hadīth 2, p. 61, quoted from the Messenger of Allah (s).
[2]: Bihār al-Anwār, vol. 75, “Book of ar-Rawdah,” ch. 25, hadīth 1, p. 309, as cited from Tuhaf al-'Uqūl.
[3]: Refer to footnote l78
[1]: Sūrah ash-Shūrā 42: 23.
Chapter 2: Some Disciplines And Secrets Of Takbīrs In The Adhān And Iqāmah
Know that, as the adhān (call to the Salat) is the announcement of the presence [hudūr] of the external and internal powers of the soul in the Presence [mahdar] of Allah for the sake of praising His Sacred Essence according to all the Names, Attributes, Affairs and āyahs since the Salat, as has already been mentioned, is a comprehensive praising of the Sacred Essence according to the manifestation of the Greatest Name, which is the state of “the Collective Oneness of the Names” [ahadiyyat-i jam'-i asmā'] in His Unity [hadrat-i
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wāhidiyyat], and the state of manifestation through the collectivity [jam'] differentiation [tafrīq], overtness [zuhūr] and covertness [butūn] in the essences [a'yān] and essential names [asmā'-i 'ayniyyah] the sālik's attention is first directed to the Majesty of the Sacred Essence according to this general affair [sha'n-i jāmi'].
So, at first, he introduces the said Greatness and Majesty to the invisible and visible powers of his own kingdom. Then, secondly, to the angels of Allah in charge of the invisible powers spread in the kingdom of the soul. Thirdly, to the beings of the invisible and visible worlds, and fourthly, to the angels of Allah in charge of the Kingdom of the heavens and the earths (lands = aradīn). So, through these four takbīrs (saying: “Allah is Greater”) he announces the Majesty of the Grand Name (Greatest Name) to all the dwellers of the invisible and visible worlds of the inward and outward kingdoms.
And this, by itself, is an announcement of his being incapable of undertaking the duty of praising the Sacred Essence, and an announcement of his falling short of performing the Salat. This, in itself, is one of the general affairs of the sulūk and of the comprehensive disciplines concerning praising and worshipping, which must be before the sālik's eyes during the whole period of performing the Salat.
That is why the takbīr is repeated in the adhān and the iqāmah, as well as in the Salat. It is also repeated when passing from one stage to another
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so that the sālik's innate inability, and the Greatness and the Glory of the Sacred Essence are confirmed in his heart.
As such, its discipline, as it appears, is that the sālik should, in each takbīr, remind himself of his inability and Allah's Majesty. On another supposition, it is possible that each one of these preliminary takbīrs of the adhān points to a state: The first takbīr means: He is Greater than the attributive Essence; the second means: He is Greater than the attributive Attribute; the third means: He is Greater than the attributive Name; and the fourth means: He is Greater than the attributive Act. Thus, it is as if the sālik says: Allāhu akbar [Allah is Greater] than your description of His Essence, or of His Essence-manifestations, and He is Greater than your describing Attributes, His Names and His Acts, or their respective manifestations.
In an elaborated speech quoted from Amīr al-Mu'minīn 'Alī ('a) it is said: “…The other aspect is that Allāhu akbar implies negation of His quality, as if he (the mu'adhdhin = the one who speaks out the adhān) ” says: “Allah's attribute, with which He is qualified, is far above being comprehended by the describers,” for the describers describe Him according to their own measure, not according to the measure of His Greatness and Majesty. He is far above His quality being understood by the describers…” as the hadīth goes. [1]
Another important discipline of the takbīrs is that the sālik is to strive, and, by
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cordial austerities, he is to prepare his heart to be the place for the Majesty of Allah, the Glorified, and to regard Greatness, Glory, Sovereignty and Majesty to be exclusively ascribed to the Sacred Essence of Allah, the Most High, and to exclude the others from Majesty. If he feels in his heart even a tiny bit of anyone else's greatness, without taking it to be the light of that of Allah's, his heart is sick and is controlled by Satan.
It is quite possible that Satan's intrusion would cause the sovereignty of the majesty of other than Allah, in the heart, to be more than that of Allah's, and the heart would regard him greater than Allah. In this case, man would be counted among the hypocrites. The symptom of this devastating disease is that man regards the pleasure of the creatures to be preferred to the pleasure of Allah, and in order to obtain the pleasure of the created, he would incur the displeasure of the Creator.
As-Sādiq ('a) is quoted to have said: “When you say: Allāhu akbar, slight whatever is there between the high (heaven) and the earth, regarding it below His Majesty, because if Allah looked into the heart of the servant while telling the takbīr, and saw therein something contradicting his takbīr, He would say: “O you liar! Are you deceiving Me? By My Might and My Majesty, I will deprive you of (tasting) the sweetness of remembering Me, and I will exclude you
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from My proximity and from getting pleasure through your supplication. ” [1]
My dear, the fact that our wretched hearts are deprived of the sweetness of remembering Allah, the Exalted, and that the enjoyment of supplication to the Sacred Essence is not tasted by our spirit, and that we are prevented from reaching the proximity of His Threshold and deprived of the manifestations of His Beauty and Majesty, is because our hearts are sick and faulty, attracted by the world, stuck to it and wrapped in the veils of the darkness of nature. And this fact deprives us of recognizing Allah's Majesty and of discerning the lights of His Beauty and Glory.
As long as our look at the beings is Satanic and independent, we shall never drink of the wine of intimacy, not attain the pleasure of supplication. As long as we believe that in the world of existence there can be glory, might, majesty, greatness and dignity for any created being, and as long as we are wrapped in the veils of the created specifications [ta'ayyunāt], the dominion [sultān] of the Majesty of Allah, the Glorified, will not manifest in our hearts.
So, of the disciplines of takbīr is that the sālik should not stop at its outer form, or be satisfied with its wordings and with mere pronunciations of the tongue. First, he is to prove to the heart, with the power of argument and the light of divine knowledge, Allah's Glory and the confinement of greatness and majesty only to
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the Sacred Essence of Allah, Most High, informing it of the poverty, humility and helplessness of all the possible dwellers and all the corporeal and spiritual beings.
After that, with the power of austerity, frequent intimacy [murāwadah] and complete familiarity, he is to enliven the heart with this divine grace and grant it spiritual and intellectual life and happiness. When the sālik realizes the poverty and the humility of the possible (the creatures) and Allah's Greatness and Majesty, and puts that before his eyes, while his contemplation and remembrance reach their assigned limit, and the heart attains familiarity and tranquility, he will see with the eye of insight the effects of Allah's Glory and Majesty in all beings, and the diseases and faults of his heart will be cured.
Only then will he taste the deliciousness of supplication and the sweetness of remembering Allah, and the heart will affirm Allah's Sovereign Majesty, and the effects of Majesty will appear in the exterior and in the interior of the kingdom, and the heart, the tongue, the outside and the inside will go in harmony. So, all the external and internal powers, visible and invisible, recite Allāhu akbar, and one of the thick curtains is drawn away, and he gets one stage nearer to the truth of the Salat.
There is a reference to some of what has been said in a lengthy hadīth in 'Ilal ash-Sharā'i', quoting Imām Ja'far as-Sādiq ('a) describing the mi'rāj. He said: “Allah, the Glorified and Almighty,
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sent down to the Prophet a carriage of light comprised of forty sorts of light which were around the 'Arsh. The 'Arsh of Allah, Blessed and Most High, blurs the eyes of the onlookers. One of them was yellow, and it became the cause of the yellowness of the yellow.
Another one was red, and it became the cause of the redness of the red…” Then he added: “… He [the Messenger (s) ] sat in it and it ascended him to the lower heaven. The angels ran to the outskirts of the heaven, and then they fell in prostration, and said: “All-Glorified and All-Holy is our Lord, the Lord of the angels and the Spirit. How this light is like the light of our Lord! ” Jibrā'īl (Gabriel) said: “Allāhu akbar! Allāhu akbar! ” The angels stopped talking, and the heaven was opened. The angels gathered and came to pay tribute to the Prophet (s) group after group…” as the hadīth goes. [1]
In this noble hadīth there are great secrets to which the hand of our hopes is too short to reach, and what can be said is now out of our purpose, like the secret of the descension of the carriage of light, the secret of the many lights, the secret of their diversity, the secret of the figure forty, the secret of its being sent down by Allah, the secret of their gathering around the 'Arsh, the truth of the 'Arsh in this respect, the secret of the yellowness of
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the yellow and the redness of the red caused by them, the secret of the angels' running, their bowing, praising and glorifying, and likening his light to Allah's, and the like. To speak about each of them would be lengthy.
Yet, that which suits this occasion and testifies to our subject is that the angels of Allah quieted down as they heard Gabriel's takbīr, and gathered around the candle of the meeting of the Absolute Guardian. By that takbīr the first heaven opened, and one of the curtains, which blocked the way to Allah, was drawn away. It should be noted that the curtains, which are pushed aside by the adhān are other than the curtains, which are in the opening takbīrs. We shall probably refer to this concept later on, inshā' Allāh (Allah willing).
Concerning there being only two takbīrs in the iqāmah, it is probably because the sālik has set up his powers in the Presence, and has somewhat advanced from multiplicity toward unity, magnifying the Essence and the Names, or the Names and the Attributes; and it may be that the magnification of the Essence and the Names implies the magnification of the Attributes and the Acts.
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[1]: Bihār al-Anwār, vol. 81, p. 131, “Book of the Salat,” ch. on “The Adhān and the Iqāmah,” hadīth 24.
[1]: Misbāh ash-Sharī'ah, ch. 13, on “Finishing the Salat”; al-Mahajjat al-Baydā', printed by as-Sadūq Library, vol. 1 , p. 385; Mustadarak al-Wasā'il, “Book of as-Salat, sec. on “The Acts of the Salat,” ch. 2, hadīth 9.
[1]: 'Ilal ash-Sharā'i', vol. 2, p. 312, sec. on “The Causes of the Wudū', the Adhān and the Salat,” hadīth 1, p. 312.
Chapter 3: Some Disciplines Concerning Testifying Divinity And Its Connection With The Adhān And The Salat
point
Know that divinity has many states [maqāmāt], which, according to “collectivity” [jam'], are explained in two: First: Divinity of Essence. Second: Divinity of Action. If by testifying that divinity is confined to Allah we mean the Divinity of Essence, its truth, with that of takbīr, will come close to each
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other if ilāh (divinity) is derived from aliha fī 'sh-shay', i. e. “He became perplexed about it,” or derived from lāha, i. e. “He became lofty” or derived from lāha yalūhu, i. e. “He concealed himself. ”
In this case its connection to the adhān and the Salat becomes known by referring to the chapter of takbīr, and so does its discipline. But to repeat it again, though not void of some advantage, is contrary to brevity. If we take aliha to mean: “He worshipped,” and ma'lūh to mean: “the worshipped,” then the sālik must make the formal testimony of the confinement of deity to Allah, the Most High, comply with the inner cordial testimony, and he should know that should there be in the heart a deity other than Allah, he would be a hypocrite in his testimony.
So, the sālik is to convey to his heart, by whatever austerity, his testimony about divinity, and to smash in his heart the big and small idols which have been engraved by the intruding hands of Satan and the evil-commanding soul, and to sweep them away, so that he may become fit to be in the Presence of His Sacred Essence. As long as the idols of loving the world and mundane affairs are still in the ka'bah of the heart, the sālik will find no way to his goal. So, testifying to divinity is to announce to the worldly and heavenly powers that the false deities and the crooked objectives should be trod upon
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so as to be able to ascend to Allah's Proximity.
But if the confinement of divinity is intended for Divinity of Action, which is management and effectiveness, the meaning of the testimony will be: I testify that there is no manager and no effective influence in the world of achievement, and in the visible and the invisible save the Sacred Essence of Allah, the Most High. If the sālik's heart cherished dependence on any being among the beings, and trusted any individual among the individuals, his heart would be diseased and his testimony false.
Thus, the sālik must first strengthen, with judicial proof, the fact that “There is no effecter [mu'aththir] in the (world of) existence except Allah. ” He must not evade the divine knowledge, which is the objective of sending prophets, and not turn away from remembering Allah and from the affairs of the Essence and Attributes, for the source of all (kinds of) happiness is the remembrance of Allah:
“And whoever turns away from remembering me, his shall surely be a straitened life. ” [1]
After attaining the truth of this divine delicacy, which is the source of the divine knowledge and the door of the doors of the hidden facts, by way of thinking and reasoning, he is to make his heart, through remembrance and austerity, familiar with them until it believes in them. This would be the first stage of the truthfulness of his words, and it is marked by complete dependence on Allah, and by taking the
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eye of greed and hope away from all beings, a fact which results in believing in Allah's Unity of Action, being one of the great states of the people of knowledge.
Having ascribed all effects to Allah, and closed the eye of greed against all beings, save His Sacred Essence, the sālik becomes worthy attending the Sacred Presence, or rather his heart becomes, by nature, attentive to that Presence. Repeating the testimony may be for confirming it, and by the testimony we mean one of the two testimonies, or it may not be a repetition, but one may refer to the Divinity of Essence and the other to the Divinity of Action. In this instance, its repetition at the end may be to confirm them, and that is why it is not mentioned there with the very words: “I testify. ”
A Gnostic Note
Know that testimony is of many stages, of which we shall be satisfied with referring to a few, as suits these pages.
The first is the verbal testimony [shahādat-i qawliyyah], which is already known. If the verbal testimony is not accompanied by cordial testimony, even in a lower stage, it will not be a testimony, but a deception and hypocrisy, as it was mentioned in the hadīth concerning takbīr, quoted from Imām as-Sādiq ('a). [1]
The second is the Practical Testimony [shahādat-i fi'liyyah], which means that man testifies through the practices of his organs. For example, he is, in the type and method of his action, to apply
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the fact that: “There is no effecter [mu'aththir] in the (world of) existence save Allah,” and, as his verbal testimony requires him to think that nobody is effective, he should work out the plan of his acts accordingly. Hence, he should not extend the hand of need to anybody except to the Sacred Presence of Allah, the Most High, nor should he open the eye of expectation at any being. He should show himself rich and in no need, before the weak servants, and keep aloof from weakness, humility and inability.
This is frequently referred to by noble Hadiths, as is in a narrative stated in the noble al-Kāfī: “A believer's dignity is to manage without the help of the people. ” [1] Showing oneself well off and prosperous is one of the religious commendable practices, while demanding things from people is undesirable. In short, one must put to practice the divine grace: “There is no effecter in the (world of) existence except Allah” in his external kingdom.
The third is the Cordial Testimony [shahādat-i qalbiyyah], which is the source of the practical and verbal testimonies, as without it, these would not come to actuality. And it is that Allah's Unity of Action manifests in the heart, which realizes, by way of its inner secret, the truth of this grace, and separates itself from other beings.
Most of the narratives quoted from the infallible Ahl al-Bayt ('a) concerning abandoning looking with greed at what is in the hands of the people, and
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despairing of the servants, and trusting and confiding in Allah, the Exalted and Most High refer to this situation.
It is in al-Kāfī, on the authority of 'Alī ibn al-Husayn ('a) that he said: “I found that the entire goodness is gathered in cutting one's coveting what is in the hands of others, and whoever placed no hope on the people in anything, and entrusted himself to Allah, the Exalted, in all his affairs, Allah would respond to him in all the things. ” [1] Hadiths of this kind are many.
The fourth is the Essence Testimony (Personal Testimony = shahādat-i dhātiyyah) , i. e. the existential testimony, and it appears in the perfect holy men. To the holy men, this testimony is present in all beings, in one way or another. Perhaps the āyah:
“Allah bears witness that there is no god but He, and (so do) the angels and the possessors of knowledge,” [2]
Is a hint at the Essence Testimony, for Allah, the Exalted, in the state of “the Collective Oneness” [ahadiyyat-i dhātiyyah] gives Personal testimony to His own Unity [wahdāniyyat], because mere existence by itself denotes the Essence-Oneness [ahādiyyat-i dhātiyyah], and in the rising of the Day of Resurrection it appears in Complete Unity [wahdāniyyat-i tāmmah].
This Oneness [ahādiyyat] appears first in the mirror of the Collectivity [jam'], then in the mirror of distinctness [tafsīl]. For this reason He said: “…and the angels and the possessors of knowledge. ” In this instance there are many states of knowledge [ma'ārif] that are out
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of the obligation of these pages to explain.
Connection
In the exegesis of Muhammad ibn Mas'ūd al-'Ayyāshī, quoting 'Abd as-Samad ibn Bashīr, it is said: “The beginning of the adhān was mentioned to Abū 'Abdullāh (Imām as-Sādiq) ('a) , and he said: “The Messenger of Allah (s) was (once) sleeping in the shadow of the ka'bah, when Gabriel came to him with a bowl of water from Paradise. He woke him up and told him to wash himself with it.
Then he (the Prophet) was put in a carriage with a thousand colors of light, and he was taken high up to the doors of the heaven. When the angels saw him, they ran away from the doors of the heaven, exclaiming: “Two gods, a god in the earth and a god in the heaven! ” Allah commanded Gabriel to shout: ”Allāhu akbar! Allāhu akbar! ” So the angels returned to the doors of the heaven.
The door was opened, and he proceeded until he reached the second heaven. The angels ran away from the doors of the heaven. There he said: “I testify that there is no god but Allah! I testify that there is no god but Allah! “The angels returned, as they realized that he was a creature. Then the door was opened and he went in…” as the hadīth goes on. [1]
A similar concept is stated in a narrative in 'Ilal ash-Sharā'i'. [2] These Hadiths denote that testifying to Allah's Divinity opens the doors of the heaven and penetrates
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the barriers, and causes the angels of Allah to gather. The veil which is penetrated through by testifying to His Divinity and by confessing it to be exclusively His, is of the thick veils of darkness, and, as long as the sālik is wrapped in it, he will have no way to attend the Presence, and unless this door opens to him, he will not be admitted.
That barrier is the veil of the multiplicity of acts, and to fall in this multiplicating veil results in taking the created beings to be effective and influential, which means regarding them to be independent in their action, which is admitting, the impossible and is a great polytheism, while, on the other hand, the result of testifying to the divinity to be exclusively Allah's, is testifying to the Unity of Action and annihilating the multiplicities in Allah's Act, and denying anyone else to have any effect or effectiveness, and believing that independence belongs to Allah, the Exalted.
It was by means of this testimony that the angels of the heaven came out of the veil of the multiplicity of “A god in the earth and a god in the heaven,” and returned from fleeing away and dispersing to familiarity and gathering, and then the doors of the heaven opened to them. So, the sālik must also penetrate through this veil of his darkness by way of this testimony and open the doors of heaven to himself, and step out of the heavy veil
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of the independence, so that the way of ascension to the mi'rāj of His Proximity becomes closer.
But this cannot be brought about by mere verbal utterances of remembering Allah, as that is why our acts of worship do not cross the limit of the mundane formality, and, thus, no door will be opened to us and no veil will be pushed off our faces.
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[1]: Sūrah Tā-Hā 20: 124.
[1]: Refer to footnote 190.
[1]: Usūl al-Kāfī, vol. 3, “Book of Faith and Disbelief,” ch. on “Doing without the People,” hadīth 1, p. 218.
[1]: Ibid. , hadīth 3.
[2]: Sūrah Āl-i 'Imrān 3: 18.
[1]: Al-'Ayyashi's Exegesis (on the Qur'an) , vol. 1, p. 157, Commenting on Sūrah al-Baqarah, narrative 530.
[2]: 'Ilal ash-Sharā'i', vol. 2, p. 312.
Chapter 4: Some Disciplines Of Testifying To The (Prophet’s) Messengership Implying Testifying To The Guardianship
point
Be aware that this spiritual journey and faithful ascension cannot be made with this broken leg, ruptured reins, blind eyes and lightless heart:
“And whomever Allah has not given light, for him there is no light” – (Surah Nur, 24: 40).
Therefore, in setting off upon this spiritual road and ascending to this gnostic mi'rāj, it is a must to adhere to the spiritual state of the guides along the ways of knowledge [ma'rifat] and the lights [anwār] of the road of guidance, who are the devotees and the attainers to Allah. If anybody tries, depending on his selfishness and without clinging to their guardianship, to tread upon this road, his journey will be to Satan and to the pit (of hell) [hāwiyah].
Scientifically speaking, to connect between the novel [hādith] and the Eternal [qadīm], the changing and the Unchanging, there should be an intermediate, a connector, with the characteristic of being unchanging and changing, eternal and novel. Without such an intermediate, the Emanation of the Eternal and the Unchanging would not pass to the changing and the novel in the divine law, and the universal
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and existential connection would not take place.
As regards the connector between these two, the scientific opinions of the experts in the evidential knowledge ['ulūm-i burhānī] are diverse, as the gnostic taste is different, to give the details of which is out of the scope of these papers. In the gnostic taste, the connector is the Sacred Emanation [fayd-i muqaddas], the Expansive Existence [wujūd-i munbasit], which has the position [maqām] of the big isthmus [barzakhiyyat-i kubrā] and the great intermediate [wasatiyyat-i 'uzmā], and it is the very position of the spirituality and the guardianship of the Seal of the Prophets, which is united with the position of 'Alī's General Guardianship [wilāyat-i mutlaq-i 'Alawiyyah].
The relevant details are stated in the Misbāh al-Hidāyah by the writer. [1]
Similarly, in the ascending spiritual connection which is the opposite of the descending existential connection, or in other words, it is “the contraction of existence” [qabd-i wujūd] and returning to the Beginning there is need for an intermediate, without which it does not take place, and the connection of the imperfect and the chained hearts, and of the limited descending spirits, with the Complete, Super Complete and the Absolute from all aspects, is not implemented without the spiritual intermediates and the invisible connectors.
If somebody thinks that Allah, the Exalted, is self-subsisting [qayyūm] with each being and encompassing each of the entities [akwān] without the intermediation of the intermediates, as is referred to in the noble āyah:
“There is no living creature but He holds
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it by the forelock,” [1]
He is mixing up the states [maqāmāt] and is making a mistake in the status [i'tibārāt], mingling the state of the multiplicity of the stages of existence with the vanishing [fanā'] of the individuations [ta'ayyunāt]. This discussion, however, is not so much connected to this paper, and, actually, what has already been said was caused by the overflowing of the pen.
In short, adhering to the masters of graces [awliyā'-i ni'am] who have themselves found the way of ascension to ma'ārij and completed their journey to Allah is a must for the travelers to Allah, as is frequently mentioned in the noble Hadiths, such that in Wasā'il (Wasā'il ash-Shī'ah) there is a chapter concerning the invalidity of worship without adhering to the guardianship of the Imāms (the 12 Imāms) and believing in their Imamate.
In Wasā'il it is quoted from the noble al-Kāfī, on the authority of its writer quoting Muhammad ibn Muslim who said: “I was told by Imām Baqīr al-'Ulūm (the fifth Imām) ('a) who said: “Know, O Muhammad, that the leaders of despotism and their followers are isolated from Allah's religion. They are misleading and misled. So, their deeds are like the ashes at which a violent wind blows on a windy day and it disperses them. ” [2]
In another narrative from Imām al-Bāqir, he said: “If a man spent his nights performing the Salat, spent his days fasting, gave out all his wealth in charity, and went to hajj every year
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of his life, yet he did not know the guardianship of Allah's friend to follow him and return to him in all his deeds, he would have no right to ask Allah, the Glorious and Almighty, for any reward, nor would he be of the people of faith. ” [1]
Shaykh as-Sadūq, quoting Abū Hamza ath-Thumālī, says that he said: “Imām 'Alī ibn al-Husayn ('a) asked us: “Which spot is most preferred? ” We said “Allah, His Messenger and the son of His Messenger know better. ” He said: “The best of spots for us is that which is situated between the rukn and the maqām (two places in the Ka'bah). If some one lives as long as the life of Nūh who lived among his people for a thousand years less fifty and spends it in fasting in daytime and in worshipping at nights in that spot, and then goes to meet Allah without accepting our guardianship, he will not be benefited by it whatsoever. ” [2]
The narratives on this topic are too many to be contained in this summary.
The discipline of testifying to the Messengership is to convey to the heart the testimony of the Messenger's being sent by Allah, as well as the greatness of the state of the Messengership, especially that of the Last Messenger, since the whole circle of existence, the invisible and visible worlds, from the viewpoints of creation, legislation, existence, and guidance, are living on the crumbs of his table.
That great man is the means
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of Allah's Emanation and the connection between Allah and the creatures. Had it not been for his spiritual status [maqām] and absolute guardianship, no existing being could have been worthy of being benefited by the state of the Invisible Oneness [ghayb-i ahadī], and Allah's grace would not have passed over to any being, and the light of guidance would not have shone onto anyone of the internal and external worlds. He is the light mentioned in the āyah of Nūr (Light):
“Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth. ” [1]
When the greatness of the legislator of the religion and of the Messenger of the Lord of the worlds enters a man's heart, the importance of his precepts and rules enter the heart, too. Then, when the heart has comprehended that greatness, the other visible and invisible powers would submit to it, and the sacred sharī'ah would be observed in the entire human kingdom. The sign of the truthfulness of the testimony is that its effects will appear in all the invisible and visible powers, and they will keep adherent to it, as has already been stated.
From what has so far been stated, the reason of testifying to the Messengership in the adhān, the iqāmah and the Salat has become clear, for the traveler on this spiritual road is in need of adhering to that sacred being, so that he may accompany him and have his helping guidance in performing this spiritual ascension.
Another aspect of
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this testimony is the announcement to the mundane and heavenly powers that the Salat, which is the reality of the ascension [mi'rāj] of the believers and the source of the knowledge of the people of gnosticism and of faith, is the result of the complete revelation [kashf] of Muhammad (s) , who, with his spiritual journey, divine attractions and the embers of the Beneficent, attained a position
“At the distance of two bows or closer still,” [1]
Revealing its truth, following the Essential, Nominal and Attributive manifestations and intimate inspirations in the Invisible Oneness. In fact, this is a souvenir, a gift that he brought from his moral and spiritual journey for his ummah, which is the best of the ummahs, and by that he favored them and overwhelmed them with blessings.
When this belief sets inside the heart and is fixed by repetition, the sālik will, as a matter of course, understand the greatness of the state and the place, and will proceed, with fear and hope, to cover this stage, and it is hoped, inshā' Allāh (Allah willing) , if he does his best to perform it, that master will assist him and lead him to the state of “the Proximity of the One” [qurb-i ahadiyy], which is the original innate objective. In the divine sciences it has been proved that the return of all beings is implemented by means of the Perfect Man:
“As He brought you forth in the beginning, so shall you also return. ” [2]
“With you Allah started and with
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you He will end, and the return of the creatures is up to you. ” [1]
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[1]: Misbāh al-Hidāyah is a book written in the Arabic language by Imām Khomeinī (may Allah sanctify his honorable soul) , explaining some truths and knowledge concerning the caliphate and guardianship. In the Preface to this honorable book he says: “I like to uncover for you, in this paper, by the help of Allah, the guardian of guidance in the beginning and in the end, an indication of the Muhammadan caliphate, and an exudation of the truth of the 'Alawian guardianship (upon them be the greeting from the beginning to eternity) and how they spread through the invisible and visible worlds…,or rather it should be named: Misbāh al-Hidāyah to Caliphate and Guardianship. I ask Allah success, as He is the best assistant and company, and I ask His pure guardians their patronage in this world and in the other world…” The writer finished writing the book in the month of Shawwal, 1349 A. H.
[1]: Sūrah Hūd 11: 56.
[2]: Wasā'il ash-Shī'ah, vol. 1, sec. on “Preliminaries to Worship,” ch. 29, hadīth 1, p. 90. Usūl al-Kāfī, vol. 1, “Book of Proof,” ch. on “Knowing the Imām and Returning to Him,” hadīth 8, p. 259.
[1]: Usūl al-Kāfī, vol. 3, “Book of Faith and Infidelity,” ch. on “The Pillars of Islam,” hadīth 5, p. 30.
[2]: 'Iqāb al-A'māl, ch. on “He Who Ignores the Merits of Ahl al-Bayt,” hadīth 2; Wasā'il ash-Shī'ah, vol. 1, sec. on “Preliminaries to Worship,” ch. 29, hadīth 12, p. 93.
[1]: Sūrah an-Nūr 24: 35.
[1]: Sūrah an-Najm 53: 9.
[2]: Sūrah al-A'rāf 7: 29.
[1]: 'Uyūnu Akhbār ar-Ridā, vol. 2, p. 272 (Al-Jāmi'ah al-Kabīrah invocation).
A Gnostic Note
In the honorable hadīth in 'Ilal ash-Sharā'i', which gives details about the Salat of the mi'rāj and describes it, it is said that when the Messenger of Allah (s) mounted on the mount of light, which had been sent down by the Lord of Might, and ascended accompanied by Gabriel, and reached the third heaven, the angels ran away, bowed and glorified Allah.
Gabriel said: “I testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. I testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah. ” The angels gathered and greeted the Messenger of Allah, and asked him about Amīr al-Mu'minīn ('Alī). The doors of the heavens opened and the Messenger ascended to the fourth heaven. There, the angels of Allah said nothing. Then the doors of the heaven opened, and the angels gathered, and Gabriel finished reciting the iqāmah…” [2] etc.
Al-'Ayyāshī, in his exegesis of the Qur'an, relates almost the same context.
From this hadīth one may gather that the angels of each of the heavens were incapable of enduring to see the Ahmadian Beauty, and they fell bowing at seeing his sacred light, and dispersed, thinking it was the light of Allah. Then, as they heard the chapters of the adhān and the iqāmah they came back to his intimacy, the doors of the heavens opened and the veils were lifted.
Hence, the sālik is to come out from these veils by
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means of the said testimonies by testifying to the Messengership he is to completely come out from the veil of the creational individuality [ta'ayyun-i khalqī], because the position of Messengership which He assigned to the most honorable of the creatures, is the position of absolute annihilation [fanā'] and complete dependence, since the final absolute Messengership is the big divine isthmus khilāfah (vicegerency, succession).
It is a vicegerency [khilāfah] in respect of appearance, manifestation, genesis, and legislation. The vicegerent [khalīfah] is not to be independent nor to have individuality in any way; as otherwise, the vicegerency becomes the principalship itself, which is not possible for any of the beings.
So, the sālik is to convey the great state of the Ahmadian khilāfat to the innermost of his heart and soul, by means of which he is to remove the veil and penetrate the barriers, and to completely come out of the veils of the creational individuation. Then, the doors of all the heavens will open to him and he will attain, unveiled, his objective.
A Juristic Branch and a Gnostic Principal
In some unreliable narratives it is stated that after testifying to the Messengership in the adhān one is to say: “I testify that 'Alī is waliyullāh (Allah's friend) ” twice. In other narratives, one is to say: “I testify that 'Alī is truly Amīr al-Mu'minīn' twice. In some others, one is to say: “Muhammad and his progeny are the best of people. ” Ash-Shaykh as-Sadūq (may Allah have mercy upon him) took these narratives to be invented
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and he denied them. [1]
It is well known among the 'ulamā' (may Allah be pleased with them) that these narratives are not reliable. Some narrators regard them among the commendables, due to “the negligence of the proofs of the laws”. This opinion, however, is not far from being true, although if “absolute proximity” [qurbat-i mutlaqah] is intended, reciting it is better and more admired, because after testifying to the Messengership, it is desirable to testify to the guardianship and the leadership of the believers.
In the hadīth of ihtijāj (argumentation) it is said that Qāsim ibn Mu'āwiyah said: “I said to Imām as-Sādiq that the people of the Sunnah relate a hadīth about the mi'rāj, that when the Messenger of Allah was taken on the mi'rāj, he saw upon the 'Arsh: “There is no god but Allah, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and Abū Bakr as-Siddīq. ” He said: “Glory be to Allah! They changed everything even this! ” He said: “Yes”. Then he continued: “When Allah, the Exalted, created the 'Arsh, He wrote upon it: “There is no god but Allah, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and 'Alī is the Commander (Leader) of the Faithful.
He ordered these to be written on the water, on the Chair (Throne) , on the Tablet, on Isrāfil's forehead, on the two wings of Gabriel, on the shoulders of the heavens and the earth, on the top of the mountains, on the sun and on the moon. ” Then the Imām added: “When anyone of
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you says: “There is no god but Allah, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah,” let him say: ”'Alī is the Commander (Leader) of the Faithful. ” [1]
In short, this noble remembrance, after testifying to the Messengership is generally recommendable. In the chapters of the adhān especially, it is probably commendable. Nevertheless, as the notable 'ulamā' have denied those narratives, one may pronounce it by way of precaution and with the general intention of proximity (to Allah) , not as a feature of the adhān.
As to the gnostic note concerning “writing these words on all the beings, as from the High 'Arsh to the low earth,” it is that the truth of the khilāfah and wilāyah (successorship and guardianship) is the manifestation of divinity, which is the origin of existence and its perfection. Every being which has a share of existence also has a share of the truth of divinity and its manifestation, which is the truth of the khilāfah and wilāyah, and the divine grace is fixed on the foreheads of all beings all over the universe, as from the invisible worlds to the end of the visible world.
The said divine grace is the truth of “the Expansive Existence” [wujūd-i munbasit], “the Breath of the Beneficent” [nafas ar-rahmān] and “the Created-in Right” [haqq-i makhlūqun bihī], which are the very inside of the Last Successorship and of 'Alī's General Guardianship. On this, the gnostic Shaykh Shāhābādī (may his spirit be sanctified) used to say that the testimony to Messengership implies the testimony
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to Guardianship, because Guardianship is the inside of Messengership.
The writer says that these two testimonies are both implied in the testimony to His Divinity, and the testimony to Messengership implies the other two testimonies, and also the testimony to Guardianship implies the other two testimonies. Praise be to Allah at the beginning and at the end.
Chapter 5: Some Disciplines Of The Hayya ‘Alā (S)
When the wayfarer to Allah has announced by his takbīrs that Allah is greater than any description, and by testifying to His Divinity has exclusively confined all attributes and praise, or, actually, every influence and effect, to Allah, and confessed his incapability of managing the amr, and by the testimony to the Messengership and Guardianship, he has chosen his comrade and company and adhered to the sacred position of successorship and guardianship as it is said: “The companion (first) then the journey” [1] then, with quite an explicit tone, he is to prepare his visible and invisible powers for the Salat, announcing the presence to them by saying: ”Hayya 'alā 's-Salat,” (come to the Salat) twice.
Its repetition is intended to complete awakening [tanbīh] and waking up [īqāz], or one is for the inner powers of the kingdom, and the other is for the outer powers of the kingdom, since they also accompany the sālik on his journey, as has already been said, and will follow, too.
In this stage, the discipline of the sālik is to tell his heart and powers, even the innermost of the heart, that the time of
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presence is near so as to prepare himself for that, fully observing the formal and the spiritual disciplines. Then he is to announce the general secret and result of the Salat, by the calling: “Hayya 'alā 'l-falāh” and “Hayya 'alā khayr 'il-'amal” (come to the best of deeds) so as to wake up the fitrat (disposition = nature) , because prosperity and salvation are absolute happiness, and all the human beings love absolute happiness by nature.
The innate nature [fitrat] is in quest of perfection and comfort. The truth of happiness is the absolute perfection and absolute comfort, and that is brought about in the Salat, which is the best of deeds, cordially, formally, outwardly, and inwardly.
This is because the Salat, according to its form and appearance, is a great and comprehensive remembrance and a praise of the Greatest Name, which encompasses all the divine affairs [shu'ūn]. For this reason, the adhān and the iqāmah open with the word “Allah” and end with it, and Allāhu akbar (Allah is Greater) is repeated in all stages of the Salat, and the three tawhīds (professions of the Unity of Allah) , which are the delight of eyes of the holy men, are effected in the Salat, in which the form [sūrat] of absolute annihilation and complete return are mixed.
According to the interior and the truth, it is ascension to the proximity of Allah, the truth of reaching the Beauty of the Absolute Beautiful and vanishing in that Sanctified Essence, dearly loved by the inborn
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nature [fitrat]. It is by the Salat that the complete calmness, absolute comfort and the complete mental happiness are achieved:
“Surely by Allah's remembrance are the hearts set at rest. ” [1]
Therefore, the absolute perfection, which is attaining to Allah's Court, joining the Necessary Limitless Sea, discerning the Eternal Beauty, and being immersed in the Sea of Absolute Light, is effected in the Salat, in which absolute comfort, complete rest and perfect calmness also appear, bringing about the two corners of happiness.
So, the Salat is perfect prosperity, and it is the best of the deeds. The sālik will have to repeat this divine grace, to remind the heart and to wake up his disposition [fitrat], and after having it in his heart, his inner nature would attach importance to it and observe it, since it looks for perfection and happiness. The same point is true in respect of the repetition.
When the sālik reaches this stage, he announces his presence by saying: “qad qāmati’s-Salat” (The Salat has just started). Then, he is to see himself at the Presence of the Master of the kings of the worlds of existence and the Sultan of the sultans and the Absolute Great, and to inform his heart about the dangers of the Presence, all of which are due to the incapability and the inefficiency of “the possible”, and to feel ashamed of not carrying out the amr, approaching, with the steps of fear and hope, towards the Generous.
He is not to regard himself possessing traveling provisions
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and company. He is to see his heart empty of safety, not to think his deeds good ones; rather, worth not a penny. Should this state become firm in his heart, he would hope to get Allah's care:
“Or who answers the distressed one, when he calls unto Him, and removes the evil? ” [1]
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[2]: Refer to footnote 191.
[1]: Man lā Yahduruh al-Faqīh, vol. 1, “Book of the Salat,” ch. on “The Adhān, the Iqāmah and the Reward of the Mu'adhdhins (Those who call for the Salat) , comment on narrative 35, p. 188.
[1]: Al-Ihtijāj, vol. 1, p. 230.
[1]: Wasā'il ash-Shī'ah, vol. 8, “Book of Hajj,” sec. on “The Manners of Travel,” ch. 30, hadīth 11, p. 299, as quoted from al-Barqī's Mahāsin, p. 357. Similar concepts are in some other narratives, such as: “Inquire about the company before the journey” as in Nahj al-Balāghah, ed. by Fayd al-Islām, p. 936, and “The company (first) , then the journey,” in al-Ash'athiyyāt, ch. on “Bad Neighboring,” p. 164.
[1]: Sūrah ar-Ra'd 13: 28
[1]: Sūrah al-Naml 27: 62.
Connection and Completion
Muhammad ibn Ya'qūb, quoting Abū 'Abdullāh as-Sādiq ('a) , says: “When you recite the adhān and the iqāmah, two rows of angels will perform the Salat behind you, but if you said the iqāmah (only) , one row of the angels would perform the Salat behind you. ” [2] There are many other Hadiths to the same effect, some of which say that the length of each row is as the distance between the east and the west. [3]
Another hadīth says that when Imām as-Sādiq ('a) was asked about the length of each row, he said: “The length of the shortest row is as the distance between the east and the west, and the length of the longest is as the distance between the heaven and the earth. ” [4] In some narratives it is said that if he said the iqāmah without the adhān, an angel would stand at his right side and another at his left side [5] , and other similar narratives.
The difference among the narratives may be due to the difference among the knowledge and the sincerity of the musallīn, as can be inferred from some narratives in this respect, such as the narrative concerning performing the Salat with the adhān
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and the iqāmah in the desert or wasteland. [1]
In short, when the sālik sees himself the leader of the Salat for the angels of Allah, and his heart as the leader of his visible and invisible powers, and gathers, with the adhān and the iqāmah, his visible and invisible powers, together with the angels of Allah, he is to regard his heart which is the best of the external and internal powers, and the intercessor for the other powers as an imām.
And, as the heart is liable for the recitings of the ma'mūmīn [musallīn] after its leadership, and as their faults are undertaken by it, the sālik is to be quite keen and a good observant of its presence, and to completely guard the disciplines of the Sacred Presence, making the most of this Sanctified Meeting, admitting the great importance of the attention and the support of the angels of Allah, taking them to be of the favors of the Real Benefactor, and acknowledging his incapability of giving the due thanks to His Sacred Majesty for these great blessings. Surely He is the Benefactor!
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[2]: Furū' ul-Kāfī, vol. 3,“Book of the Salat,”ch. on“Starting the adhān and the iqāmah,”hadīth 8, p. 303.
[3]: Thawāb al-A'māl, “The reward of the one who performs the Salat with the adhān and the iqāmah,” hadīth 2, p. 54.
[4]: Ibid.
[5]: Wasā'il ash-Shī'ah, vol. 4, “Book of the Salat,” sec. on “The Adhān and the Iqāmah,” ch. 4, hadīth 4, p. 620.
[1]: Ibid. , hadīth 9: “O Abū Dharr, your Lord boasts over His angels for three persons: a man in a waste land…”
Section Two: Concerning the Qiyām (the Standing Position in the Salat)
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Discussed in Two Chapters
Chapter 1: The General Secret of the Qiyām
Know that the people of knowledge regard the qiyām (the standing position in the Salat) to be a sign of Unity of Actions. Similarly, they see that the rukū' (bowing in the Salat) refers to the Unity of Attributes, and the sujūd (prostration) refers to the Unity of Essence these will be explained in their proper places. But qiyām's reference to the
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Unity of Action is in the very standing position as well as in the wordings recited while standing.
As to the standing position and its reference to the Unity of Action, it is because it denotes the servant's observation of his duty toward Allah, as well as His position [maqām] of Self-Existence, manifested in the Sacred Emanation as a manifestation of Action. In this manifestation the position of Allah's Activeness [fā'iliyyat] is displayed, and all the beings are absorbed in the manifestation of Action and perished under the Manifest Majesty.
In this instance, the gnostic discipline of the sālik is to remind his heart of this divine grace and to give up, as much as he can, his personal individuations [ta'ayyunāt-i nafsiyyah], and to explain to his heart the truth of the Sacred Emanation, and to bring to the core of his heart the fact concerning Allah's Self- Existence [qayyūmiyyat] and that the creatures are dependent upon Him.
Hence, after the fixation of this fact in the sālik's heart, his recitation will be by the tongue of the Haqq (Allah) , and the praiser [dhākir] and the praised [madhkūr] will be the Haqq (Allah) Himself, and some of the secrets of the Fate will be exposed to the gnostic's heart, and “You are as You praised Yourself” [1] and “I take refuge in You from You” [2] will be disclosed to him in some degrees, and the heart of the gnostic will receive some of the secrets of the Salat, such as looking at
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the place of prostration, which is of dust, the principal origin (of man) , or subjugating the neck and declining the head, as required, implying humility and destitution of “the possible”, and the annihilation under the Might and the Sovereignty of (His) Majesty.
“O mankind! It is you who are in need of Allah, and Allah is He who is the Self-Sufficient, the Praised One. ” [1]
As concerning the wordings of the recitation being a reference to the Unity of Action, we shall explain that in details when we come to comment on the blessed sūrah of al-Hamd, inshā' Allāh (Allah willing).
Chapter 2: On The Disciplines Of The Qiyām
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[1]: Of an invocation from the Messenger of Allah (s) in his prostration. Furū' ul-Kāfī, vol. 3, p. 324; Misbāh ash-Sharī'ah, ch. 5; 'Awāliy 'ul-La'ālī, vol. 1, p. 389, hadīth 21
[2]: Ibid. ; Misbāh al-Mutahajjid wa Silāh al-Muta'abbid, p. 308.
[1]: Sūrah al-Fātir 35: 15.
point
These [disciplines] are such that the sālik is to consider himself present in the Presence [mahdar] of Allah, and regard the world as His Presence, and himself one of the audience at that gathering, standing before Allah, trying to convey the Greatness of the Present and the Presence to his heart, letting it understand the importance and the significance of supplicating to Allah, the Exalted, and, by thinking and contemplating, before starting the Salat, to prepare the heart to understand the importance of the situation, obliging it to humbleness, submission, calmness, fear, hope, humility and modesty till the end of the Salat.
He is to stipulate that his heart should be keen on observing these affairs, and think about the great holy men and guides, and about their moods and how their conducts with the Master of the kings were, so as to learn a lesson from the Imāms of guidance and
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imitate them as his models, not being satisfied with just knowing the names of the infallible Imāms, the date of their birthday, death day, the length of their honorable lives and similar details, which are of little advantage.
Actually, he is to go through their biography and godly conducts, in order to find out the method of their worship and how their journey to Allah was carried out, and how their gnostic stations, which can be inferred from their miraculous speeches, were.
It is much regretted that we are negligent, intoxicated by nature, empty self-conceited and the stooges of the vile Satan in all matters, without there being any sign of our getting up from our deep sleep and endless forgetfulness. We get so little benefit from the positions and the knowledge of the Imāms of guidance ('a) that it is negligible, satisfying ourselves with the outer appearance of their lives, completely disregarding the objectives for which the prophets have been sent, and, actually, we are covered by the proverb: “To take a swelling for a fleshy. ” [1] We shall, therefore, relate some of the relevant narratives, so that some of the believing brethren may have a remembrance. Praise be to Allah and thanks to Him!
Muhammad ibn Ya'qūb, quoting Imām as-Sadiq ('a) , says: “Whenever 'Alī ibn al-Husayn ('a) used to stand for the Salat, his face turned pale. Going down for prostration, he would not raise his head until he was wet with perspiration. ” [2]
On the same authority
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he says: “My father used to say, when 'Alī ibn al-Husayn ('a) used to stand for the Salat, he looked like a trunk of a tree, nothing of which would move unless the wind would move it. ” [1]
In al-'Ilal, Abān ibn Taghlīb, quoting Muhammad ibn 'Alī ibn al-Husayn, says: “I said to Abū 'Abdullāh [as-Sadiq] ('a): 'I noticed that when 'Alī ibn al-Husayn ('a) stood for the Salat, his color changed. ' He said to me: By Allah, 'Alī ibn al-Husayn knew before whom he was standing. ' [2]
In a hadīth in Falāh as-Sā'il, on the authority of as-Sayyid 'Alī ibn Tāwūs, it is said: “... then Abū 'Abdullāh ('a) said: 'The Salat will not be complete except for the one who has a full purity and a mature completeness, and is away from temptation and deviation, and knows [Allah] and [so] stands [before Him], submits [to Him] and persists.
He, thus, stands between despair and hope, [between] patience and worry, as if the promises to him have been done, and the threats upon him have happened, lowering his fame ['ird] and manifesting his aim. He sacrifices for Allah his soul, treads upon the road to Him as his goal, not unwillingly, severs the relations of interest for the sake of the One to Whom he bounds and comes, and from whom he seeks help. Should he achieve all these, the Salat would be of the ordered type and of the informed about, and it is the very Salat which forbids evil and
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vice. ” [1]
Muhammad ibn Ya'qūb, quoting our master, Zayn al-'Ābidīn ('a) , says that he said: “As regards the rights of the Salat, you are to know that it is a visit to Allah and that in it you are standing before Him. If you realized that, you would deserve to be, through it, in the position of a slave who is humble, desirous, horrified, frightened, hopeful, distressed, imploring, and glorifying the state of the One in front of Whom he stands with complete stillness, solemnity, submissiveness of the limbs, humility, well supplicating to Him for himself, requesting Him to free his neck, which is encircled by his faults and consumed by his sins; and there is no power except by Allah. [2]
The Prophet (s) is quoted to have said: “Worship your Lord as if you see Him. If you do not see Him, He sees you. [3]
In Fiqh 'ur-Ridā it is stated: “When you want to perform the Salat, do not go to it lazily, sleepily, hurriedly, or unmindfully. You are to approach it calmly, solemnly and slowly. You are also to display submission, imploringly and humbly, to Allah. You are to show awe and sings of fear and hope, with caution and apprehension. Thus, you are to stand before Him, as an escapee and sinful slave stands at attention before his master, on the alert, with joined heels, erected trunk, not looking to right and left, reckoning as if you see Him, and if you do not, He certainly does see
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you…” as the hadīth goes. [1]
In 'Uddat 'ud-Dā'ī it is stated: “It is narrated that the imploring moanings of Ibrāhīm ('a) used to be heard from a mile's distance, such that Allah praised him by saying:
“Ibrāhīm was mild, imploring, penitent. ” [2]
When performing his Salat, a sound of fizz, like that of a boiler, was heard coming from his chest. A similar sound was also heard from the chest of our Prophet (s). Fātimah ('a) used to pant in the Salat because of her fear of Allah. ” [3] And there are other similar Hadiths.
There are too many noble narratives on these subjects to be covered in these papers. Contemplating these few narratives suffices the people of thought and remembrance, in respect of the formal, cordial and spiritual disciplines, as well as concerning the way of standing before Allah.
Think a little of the conditions of 'Alī ibn al-Husayn, the supplications of that great man and his implorings to Allah, the Exalted as well as his elegant invocations, by which he taught the disciplines of servitude to the servants of Allah. I do not allege that the supplications of those great men were intended to teach how to worship, for it would be an empty and meaningless statement prompted by being ignorant of the state of Lordship and of the knowledge of Ahl al-Bayt ('a).
Their fear and awe were much greater than anybody else's, and the Greatness and Majesty of Allah were manifested in their hearts more than in
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anyone else's heart. I only say that the servants of Allah should learn from them how to worship Allah and how to travel to Him. When you read what they used to say in their supplications and invocations, you should not read them as mere pronunciations of the tongue. They should be pondered upon, and their behavior with Allah, their displaying humility, inefficiency and destitution, are also to be noted.
By the Beloved! 'Alī ibn al-Husayn was one of the greatest blessings which Allah, the Most High, had bestowed upon His servants as a grace, bringing him down from the sacred world of Proximity, for the sake of teaching the ways of servitude to His servants:
“Then, on that Day, you shall most certainly be questioned about the bliss. ” [1]
If we are asked: “Why did you not appreciate the value of that bliss and did not get benefit from that great man? ” we shall have no reply but to droop down our heads for being ashamed, and to be burnt with the fire of remorse and regret, when no regret would avail.
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[1]: It means: “To be by the appearance” or “To take an unreal matter for a real one. ”
[2]: Furū' ul-Kāfī, vol. 3, p. 300. 'Book of the Salat,”ch. On “Submission in the Salat and Disapproving Toying,”hadīth 5.
[1]: Ibid. ,hadīth 4.
[2]: 'Ilal 'ush-Sharā'i' p. 88, as in Wasā'il ash-Shī'ah, vol. 4 p. 685, “Book of the Salat” sec. on “The Acts of the Salat” ch. 2, hadīth 4.
[1]: Falāh 'us-Sā'il, ch. 2, “On the Description of the Salat”, p. 23.
[2]: Mustadrak al-Wasā'il, “Book of the Salat,” sec. On “The Acts of the Salat,” ch. 2, hadīth 3.
[3]: Bihār al-Anwār, vol. 74, p. 74, Book of Flower Garden,” “The Prophet's Preachings,” ch. 4, hadīth 3; Makārim al-Akhlāq, p. 59.
[1]: Mustadrak al-Wasā'il, “Book of the Salat,” sec. on “The Acts of the Salat,” ch. 1. hadīth 7, extracted from Fiqh ar-Ridā, p. 101, ch. On “The Obligatory Salats. ”
[2]: Sūrah Hūd 11: 75.
[3]: Mustadrak al-Wasā'il, “Book of the Salat,” sec. on “The Acts of the Salat,” ch. 2, hadīth 15.
[1]: Sūrah at-Takāthur 102: 8.
A Piece of Good Advice
My dear, now that the chance is available, and you are still in the prime of life, the way of journeying to Allah is open, the doors of His mercy are not closed, the soundness of the organs and powers is obtained and the land of planting [dār az-zar'] in the material world is still there, strive to realize the value of these divine favors in order to
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be benefited by them. Try to acquire the spiritual perfections and the eternal happiness.
Take advantage of all these branches of knowledge which the honorable divine Qur'an and the infallible Ahl al-Bayt ('a) have spread in the land of the dark nature, and illuminated the world with their divine bright light. Enlighten the land of your dark nature, as well as your eyes, ears, tongue and your other external and internal powers, with the light of Allah, the Exalted, and change this dark earth to another one, luminous, or rather to an intellectual heaven:
“On the day when the earth shall be changed to a different earth,” [1]
“And the earth shall beam with the light of its Lord. ” [2]
On that day, if your earth is not changed to a different one, and if it is not lighted with the light of the Lord, you will encounter darkness, difficulty, horror, pressure, humility and torture.
At present, our external and internal powers are darkened with satanic darkness. Should we remain so, our material earth with its inborn light will gradually change into a dark dungeon, empty of the inborn light and veiled from the rules of the divine disposition.
This is misfortune entailing no happiness, a darkness which comes to no luminosity, a horror which does not see the face of tranquility, and a torment which has no comfort with it:
“…And to whomsoever Allah does not give light, he has no light. ” [3]
I take refuge in Allah, the Exalted, from the satanic conceitedness and
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from the evil-commanding soul.
The principal objective of the great prophets, in legislating the laws, in establishing the rules and in the coming down of the heavenly books especially the all- embracing Holy Qur'an, the projector of whose pure light is the Seal of the Messengers (s) is spreading monotheism and divine knowledge, and uprooting infidelity, atheism, hypocrisy and dualism, for the secret of monotheism and abstraction is flowing in all the cordial and formal worships.
The Shaykh, the gnostic and perfect, Shāhābādī, (may my soul be his ransom) , used to say: “Worship is the operation of tawhīd [monotheism] in the kingdom of the body from the inside of the heart. ”
In short, the sought-for result of worship is acquiring knowledge, confirming monotheism and other knowledge in the heart. This objective cannot be attained except when the sālik vindicates his cordial shares of worship, and passes from the shape and form to the core and the truth, without lingering in this world and the surface, for loitering in such affairs is a hindrance [thorn] in the way of mankind.
Those who call for the mere external appearance [sūrat], preventing the people from the internal disciplines, alleging that religion has no meaning and no reality other than its appearance and surface, are but the satans on the road to Allah, and the thorns in the way of humanity. To be saved from their evil, one has to take refuge in Allah, the Exalted, for they extinguish the divine inborn light, which is the light
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of [divine] knowledge, tawhīd, guardianship and other kinds of knowledge, and draw the covers of imitation, ignorance, tradition ['ādat] and fancies [awhām] on it, deter the servants of Allah, the Exalted, from advancing to His threshold, and from reaching to His Beautiful Beauty, and block the way of knowledge.
They direct the pure and sincere hearts of Allah's servants in which He, with His hand of Beauty and Majesty, hid the seeds of knowledge in their disposition, and sent the great prophets and heavenly Books to breed and bring them upto the world, to its ornaments, to its materialities and corporalities, and to its falsities, and divert them from spiritualities and intellectual happiness, confining the invisible world and the promised paradises exclusively to food, drink, sex and other animal desires.
They think that Allah, the Exalted, has laid out His table-cloth of mercy, sent down, with so much ceremony, His Books, employed His noble angels and assigned great prophets, just for the sake of satisfying hunger and sex. The most they know is: Take care of your stomach and sex drive so that you may satisfy your desire in the other world. The importance which they attach to a sexual intercourse lasting for five hundred years [in Paradise according to a narrative] they do not attach to tawhīd and prophethood, and they take knowledge to be a preliminary to satiate their libido and gluttony.
If a godly philosopher, or a divine gnostic, wanted to open a door of mercy to the
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servants of Allah, or to read a paper of divine wisdom to them, they would spare no abuse, curse and forged accusations without throwing them at him. They are so indulged in mundane affairs, and so concerned about sex and stomach, unknowingly, that they do not desire any other happiness in this world except satisfying their animal lust, despite the fact that the intellectual happiness, should they care for it, would not injure their lust for sex and food.
Like ourselves, since we have not yet crossed the limit of animality, we think of nothing but food and sex, to which we may attain by the grace of Allah, the Exalted. We are not, however, to believe that happiness is confined to that, and that the paradise of Allah, the Exalted, is restricted only to this paradise of animals. As a matter of fact, Allah, the Exalted, has such worlds that no eye has ever seen, no ear has ever heard of, and never occurred to any heart. Yet, the people of divine love and knowledge pay attention to none of those paradises, and are interested in neither of the invisible and visible worlds. To them, paradise is meeting Allah.
If we want to relate the relevant Qur'anic āyahs and the Hadiths quoted from the infallible Ahl al-Bayt, it would not be within the scope of these papers. Actually, even what has been said was out of the overflowing of the pen. Our major objective is to direct the attention
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of the hearts of the servants of Allah to what they have been created for, that is, to know Allah, which is superior to all sorts of happiness, and everything else is but a preliminary to it.
By referring to “the thorns on the road of the sulūk”, we did not mean the great 'ulamā' of Islam, nor the honorable faqīhs of the Ja'farī school (may Allah's contentment be upon them) , but we do mean some of the people of ignorance and those who pretend to be of the people of knowledge by means of insufficiency [qusūr] and ignorance [jahl], not by means of negligence [taqsīr] and abstinacy ['inād],and who became highway robbers of the servants of Allah. I take refuge in Allah from the evil of an overflowing pen, bad intention and false objective. Praise be to Allah at the beginning and the end, externally and internally.
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[1]: Sūrah Ibrāhīm 14: 48.
[2]: Sūrah az-Zumar 39: 69.
[3]: Sūrah an-Nūr 24: 40.
Section Three: On the Secret of the Niyyah [Intention]
point
Discussed in Five Chapters
Chapter 1: The Truth Of The Niyyah In Worship
Know that the niyyah [intention] is to decide or to determine to do something. It is the soul's decision on performing some acts after conceiving it and then acknowledging its advantage and judging its necessity. It is a psychological and conscientious condition, which appears after the said procedures. It is, then, expressed as a decision, a determination, a want, a will, an objective and the like. It appears in all voluntary actions, as there can be no voluntary act without undergoing the said process, and it is there in the entire action, in reality, not allegorically.
It does not
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need, however, that the details should be in the mind from the very beginning or even during the process, nor should one necessarily imagine the objective and the decision in detail. It sometimes happens that man does the act according to a decision, and yet he is completely unaware of the detailed picture of the act and the decision, while the fact is there, and it takes place in the outside, motivated by that fact. This is quite consciously obvious in the voluntary acts.
In sum, this decision and determination, which is the niyyah in the terminology of the faqīhs (may Allah be pleased with them) , is, inevitably in every act, such that if one wanted to do a voluntary act without it, it would not be possible.
Nevertheless, the whisperings of the wicked Satan and the sportings of fancy overrule reason and disguise the necessities in the eyes of the helpless man, and man, instead of spending his precious life in improving and purifying his deeds, and in freeing them from internal evils, and instead of spending it in acquiring monotheistic knowledge, godliness and being in quest of Allah, the vile Satan whispers in his ears and induces him to spend only half of his life in quest of a necessary and obligatory matter.
Satan's snares and artifices are too many one may be induced by him to give up the act altogether, while the other whom he despairs of inducing to drop the act, induces him to commit
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other follies, such as self-conceitedness and hypocrisy. If Satan could not succeed in this, he would try to falsify one's worship by way of causing him to pretend holiness: by slighting the worships of the people in his eyes, and by causing him to regard the people indifferent [heedless].
Then he induces him to spend all his life on matters such as the niyyah, which is inseparable from the act, or the takbīr or the recitation, which are common and ordinary acts. At any rate, Satan would not leave man alone before nullifying his worship by one way or another.
Satanic whisperings come through diverse ways, which we cannot discuss for the time being, nor scrutinize them all. But the whispering in the niyyah, from among them, may be the most ridiculous and the strangest, because if someone tried, with all his powers, to do a voluntary act in all his life, without a niyyah [an intention], it would be impossible for him to do it.
Nevertheless, you may find some wretched, sick and feeble-minded person who spends a considerable time at every Salat just to have a firm intention. Such a person is more like the one who thinks a long time whether he is to decide to go shopping or to go for a lunch. This helpless man, to whom the Salat should be his ascension to His proximity, and the key to his happiness, and, by applying its cordial disciplines and realizing the secrets of this
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divine grace he should perfect his essence [dhāt] and secure his growth [nash'ah] of life, he, on the contrary, neglects all these matters, or, much worse, besides regarding them unnecessary, he takes them all to be false, and uses his dear and valuable capital to serve Satan and to obey his slinking whispers, placing the God- given reason ['aql], which is the light of guidance, under the rule of Iblīs.
'Abdullāh ibn Sinān says: “I mentioned before Imām as-Sādiq ('a) [a case concerning] a man who was afflicted with frequently performing the Wudu' and the Salat, and described him to be a man of reason. The Imām said: “What reason has he in obeying Satan? ” I asked him: “How is it that he is obeying Satan? ” He said: “If you ask him wherefrom his hesitation comes to him, he will tell you it is of the work of Satan. ” [1]
In short, man should uproot this by whatever means of austerity and strife, for it deprives him of all happiness and good. It may be that forty years of a man's worship are not correctly performed even in the outer appearance or according to the juristic formal details, let alone the internal religious disciplines.
More ridiculous is that some such fastidious persons think that the worships of all people are invalid and take them to be negligent in respect of religion, whereas their religious authorities whose instructions they follow are also among the ordinary people. If he is a learned man, let him refer
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to the Prophet's tradition to see that the Messenger of Allah (s) and the Imāms of guidance ('a) were also like the ordinary people in these matters.
From among all the people only this group of fastidious persons, act contrary to the Messenger of Allah (s) , the infallible Imāms ('a) , the jurists of religion and the scholars of the 'ummah, regarding the acts of worship of all of them worthless, believing their own to be done according to precaution and that they take good care of religion. Take, for example, the case of the Wudu'. The narratives about the Wudu' of the Messenger of Allah (s) are many and successively transmitted. It seems that the Messenger of Allah (s) used a single handful [of water] to wash his face, another for his right hand and a third for his left hand. [1]
The Imāmī faqīhs are unanimous on definitely regarding this Wudu' to be the correct one. The Book of Allah, too, apparently confirms it. As to the second washing, or the second handful, it is objected by some, while there is no harm in the second handful, or the second washing, although its recommendation is questionable. But the third washing is undoubtedly an innovation and renders the Wudu' invalid, according to both the narration and the fatwā.
Now, look at the acts of this helpless fastidious person who is not satisfied with twenty handfuls [of water], each one of which is enough to fully wash the hand and to consider it a
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“complete wash”. In this case his Wudu' is undoubtedly invalid. But this wretched, feeble-minded person, who performs this act in obedience to Satan's orders and whispers, thinks that what he does is correct and according to precaution; then, by contrast, he takes the acts of all others to be incorrect and invalid.
Here the noble hadīth proves true in respect of calling this man insane. The one who thinks correct an act, which is contrary to the act of the Messenger of Allah (s) , and regards an act, which is in conformity with the Prophet's to be incorrect, is either a renegade or an insane. But as this desperate person is not a renegade, he must be insane, obedient to Satan and disobedient to the Beneficent [ar-rahmān].
There is no remedy for this acute disease except through contemplation and reflection on the aforementioned matters; making a comparison between his act and that of the pious, the scholars and the faqīhs (may Allah be pleased with them). If he sees that his act differs from theirs, he is to push Satan's nose into the dust and to completely ignore that evil creature. Then, after that if Satan tries and whispers in his ears several times: “Your act is invalid,” let him reply: “If the acts of all the faqīhs of the ummah are invalid, mine is invalid, too. ”
It is hoped that after some time spent contradicting Satan, taking refuge in Allah, the Exalted, with invocations and imploring, from his evils,
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this disease will be cured and Satan's greedy eye will be lifted from him. The same instructions are also recommended in the noble Hadiths to remedy excessive doubt, which is also of the satanic inspirations.
In the noble al-Kāfī, on the authority of Imām al-Bāqir ('a) , it is stated that he has said: “When doubts in the Salat become too frequent, do not give heed to them, and regard the Salat to be correct. It is hoped that this state would leave you, as it is not caused but by Satan. ” [1]
In another narrative, Imām al-Bāqir ('a) , or Imām as-Sādiq ('a) , is quoted to have said: “Do not make it Satan's habit to frequent you by breaking your Salat, as this will stir his greed against you. Satan is evil and gets accustomed to what he is habituated to. ”
Zurārah says that the Imām added: “That malignant wants to be obeyed. So, if he is disobeyed he will not come back to you. ” [2]
This is an important cure for all cases of Satan's intrusions and of the jestings of devilish fancies. In some Hadiths invocations are also recommended. You may, in this respect, refer to Wasā'il ash-Shī'ah, Mustadrak al-Wasā'il at the end of the book al-Khalal.
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[1]: Usūl al-Kāfī, vol. 1, “Book of Reason and Ignorance,” hadīth 10, p. 13.
[1]: Furū' ul-Kāfī, vol. 3, “Book of Purity,” ch. on the “Description of the Wudū', p. 24.
[1]: Ibid. , “Book of the Salat,” ch. on “The One who Doubts in His Salat, hadīth 8, p. 359.
[2]: Ibid. , hadīth 2.
Chapter 2: Sincerity
One of the important disciplines of the niyyah, which is of the important parts of all worships and of the general and comprehensive instructions, is “sincerity”. Its nature is purging the act of worship from the impurity of doing it for other than Allah,
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and clearing the heart from discerning anything other than Allah, the Exalted, in all formal, intellectual, external, and internal acts.
It achieves its perfection by absolutely neglecting the other [than Allah], and decisively pounding upon I-ness, selfishness, the other and the otherness. Allah, the Exalted, says:
“Surely Allah's is the pure religion. ” [1]
So, if the religion was mixed with any selfish and satanic desires, it would not be pure; and that which is not pure is not acceptable to Allah, and that which has a blemish of otherness and selfishness is outside the limits of Allah's religion.
Allah, the Exalted, says:
“And they were not enjoined except that they should worship Allah, making the religion His sincerely. ” [2]
And He also says:
“…And whoever desires the tillage of this world, We give him thereof, but in the Hereafter he will have no portion. ” [3]
It has been narrated that the Messenger of Allah (s) said: “Every person gets according to his intention. So, the one whose intention is to migrate to Allah and His Messenger, his migration will be to Allah and His Messenger; and the one whose intention of migration is to attain to this world [to get something of it] or to marry a woman, his migration is to what he has intended. ” [4]
Allah, the Exalted, says:
“And whoever leaves his house migrating to Allah and His Messenger, and then death overtakes him, his reward is, indeed, with Allah. ” [5]
Maybe this noble āyah covers all degrees of
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sincerity: One is the formal migration of the body. If this migration was not purely for the sake of Allah and His Messenger, but was for the sake of personal desires, then it would not be a migration to Allah and His Messenger. This is the formal juristic degree of sincerity.
Another one is the spiritual migration, and internal journey, which starts from the dark house of the self, with its goal being Allah and His Messenger. It, after all, returns to Allah Himself, because the Messenger, as a messenger, has no independence of his own; rather, he is an āyah, a mirror and a representative. So, to migrate to him means migrating to Allah: “The love of Allah's close friends is loving Allah. ”
So, the gist of the meaning of the noble āyah, based on this possibility, is that the one who leaves the house of the self, and gets out of the mansion of selfishness, on a spiritual migration and a gnostic cordial journey to Allah, disregarding his self, dignity and prestige, his reward will be with Allah.
But if the sālik to Allah demands, in his sulūk to Allah, a personal desire, such as attaining stations, or even attaining Allah's proximity for himself, this sulūk will not be to Allah. Actually, the sālik has not even got out of his self; that is, his journey is inside his own house, roaming from side to side and from corner to corner.
Therefore, if the journey is
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within the limits of the self [nafs] for the sake of attaining self-perfections, it will not be a journey to Allah, it is, in fact a journey from self to self. Nevertheless, the sālik in his journey to Allah, will, inevitably, experience this kind of travel. No one, except the perfect walīs [friends of Allah] ('a) can commence his divine journey without a journey within himself, as that exclusively belongs to the perfect ones ('a). Perhaps the noble āyah:
“Peace it is till the break of the dawn,” [1]
is a hint at this safety from the Satanic and selfish conducts during all the stages of the journey in the dark nights of nature, which is the night of Qadr in respect of the perfect ones, till the dawn of the Resurrection Day, which means, to the perfect ones, seeing the Beauty of the One. But the others would not be safe in all the stages of the journey. As a matter of fact, no sālik would be free from Satan's intrusions in the early stages.
So, it has become clear that this degree of sincerity whose first stage in the journey to Allah is safety, till its last, which is the attainment of real death, or rather till after the second real life, which is the “sobriety [sahw] after the self-effacement [mahw]” would not happen to the people of sulūk and the common people of gnosticism and of austerity. The sign of this kind of sincerity is that
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Satan's temptation will have no way into those possessing it, and Satan's covetous eye will turn in complete despair away from them, as is said by Satan in the Qur'an:
“By Your Might I will tempt them all, except your sincere servants from among them. ” [1]
Here, sincerity is ascribed to the servant himself, not to his act, which is a state loftier than sincerity in act. Perhaps the well-known noble hadīth of the Prophet (s) who said: “The one who keeps being sincere to Allah for forty mornings, fountains of wisdom will flow from his heart to his tongue,” [2] refers to all the degrees of sincerity, i. e. sincerity of act, of attribute and of essence, and probably it appears in sincerity of essence, for which the other degrees of sincerity are requisites.
To explain this noble hadīth, and to state what is meant by “fountains of wisdom”, the way they flow from the heart to the tongue, the effect of sincerity in this flowing and the significance of “forty mornings”, are out of the scope of this thesis, as they need a separate book. The thesis titled Tuhfat 'ul-Mulūk fī’s-Sayri was-Sulūk, ascribed to the knower of Allah, the late Bahr al-'Ulūm, is mostly concerned with the explanation of this noble hadīth. It is a nice thesis, though somewhat arguable. For this reason some say that it was not written by the said great personality, which is quite possible.
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[1]: Sūrah az-Zumar 39: 3.
[2]: Sūrah al-Bayyinah 98: 5
[3]: Sūrah ash-Shūrā 42: 20.
[4]: Mustadrak al-Wasā'il, sec. on “Preliminaries to the Acts of Worship,” ch. 5, hadīth 5.
[5]: Sūrah an-Nisā' 4: 100
[1]: Sūrah al-Qadr 97: 5.
[1]: Sūrah Sād 38: 82, 83.
[2]: Bihār al-Anwār, vol. 67, “Book of Faith and Disbelief,” ch. on “Sincerity”, hadīth 10, p. 242, quoting 'Uyūnu Akhbār ar-Ridā, vol. 2, p. 69, with a slight difference. The same content is stated in the latter source, hadīth 25, p. 249.
Chapter 3: A Brief Account On Some Stages Of Sincerity To Fit Within These Papers
One of these stages is to purge the act, whether cordial
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or formal, from the blemish of acquiring the creatures' pleasure and attracting their hearts for the sake of a praise, and advantage or anything else. And the counterfeit of it is the act performed hypocritically, which is a juristic hypocrisy and is the meanest of all degrees of hypocrisies, and such a hypocrite is the lowest and meanest of all hypocrites.
The second stage is to purge the act from wanting the fulfillment of mundane objectives and transient desires, although these acts may be fulfilled in order to attain Allah's grace, such as performing night salāts [nāfilah] for improving one's sustenance, or performing the salāt of the first day of the month, for example, in order to be safe from the plights of the month, or giving out alms to ward off diseases, and other worldly objectives.
Some jurisprudents (may Allah's mercy be upon them) regard this degree of sincerity to be necessary for the correctness of the acts of worship, in case the objective of performing the act is to attain it. But this is contrary to investigation according to the juristic rules. Yet, this salāt has no value, whatsoever, in the eyes of the people of knowledge, and it is like all other lawful gains, or maybe even lower.
The third stage is to purge the act from trying to attain corporeal paradises, houris, luxurious abodes and the likes of the corporeal pleasures. Its counterfeit is the worship of the traders, as is described in the
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noble hadīths. This, too, is, to the people of Allah, similar to other gains, though the wage of the acts of this trader is more and higher, in case he carries them out and rids them from the formal viles.
The fourth stage is to purify the act from being afraid of the threatened bodily punishment and torture. The counterfeit of this is the worship of the slaves, as is mentioned in the narratives. [1]
To the people of the heart, this kind of worship is also of no value and far from being a service to Allah, while, to the people of knowledge, it makes no difference if a man performs an act out of fearing the penalties and punishments of this world or the tortures of the Hereafter, or for the purpose of possessing worldly women, or for obtaining the paradisiac women, none of them will be for Allah, and they [only] show the intention [reason=dā'ī] for the performance of an act, which, according to juristic rules, takes the act out of formal invalidity. But in the market of the people of knowledge this stuff is of no value.
The fifth stage is to purge the act from trying to attain intellectual happiness and everlasting spiritual pleasures, and to join the cherubim, the group of the sacred intellects and the favorite angels. Its counterfeit is acting for this purpose. Although this stage is great and an important goal, and the wise men and researchers attach great
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importance to this stage of happiness and regard it very valuable, yet, in the ways of the people of Allah, this stage has also its shortcomings in sulūk, and its sālik is also regarded as a trader or a worker, though his trade and business are different, in many ways, from those of others.
As regards this stage, I mean the sixth one; it is to purge the act from being afraid of not attaining those pleasures and of being deprived of this happiness. Its counterfeit is to act for this stage out of fear. Although this is a lofty stage and is beyond the desire of one like the writer, yet, to the people of Allah, this is also the worship of the slaves, for it has causes.
The seventh stage is to purge it from attaining the delights of the Divine Beauty and enjoying the pleasures of the lights of limitless glories, which are the Paradise of Meeting [the Lord]. This stage, I mean the stage of Meeting Allah, is one of the most important goals of the people of knowledge and those of heart, and the hands of the hopes of the common people are too short to reach it. Only a few of the people of knowledge are favored with the happiness of this honor.
And the people of love and attraction are of the perfect ones among the people of Allah and His chosen ones. Yet, this perfection is not the most
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perfect degree of the people of Allah. It is one of their many common states. What we read in some invocations, such as the Sha'bāniyyah supplication, that Imām 'Alī ('a) and his pure progeny demand the said state, or allude to their being in that state, does not mean that their states are limited to this one, since the eighth stage, which is on the same level as this one, and which is purging the act from the fear of separation, is also not of the perfect states of the perfect ones. Imām 'Alī's saying: “How could I forbear separating from You? ” [1] is just a reference to a brim-full common state of him and of one like him.
Generally speaking, purging the act from these two stages is also a must to the people of Allah, for to act with them will be endued with causes and not free from selfish wants. It is, thus, perfect sincerity. Next, there are other stages that are out of the limits of sincerity, and fall under the criterion of monotheism, abstraction and guardianship, all of which do not fit here.
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[1]: See, for example, Wasā'il ash-Shī'ah, vol. 1, sec. on “The Preliminaries to the Acts of Worship,” the narratives of chapter 9, p. 45; Usūl al-Kāfī, vol. 3, “Book of Faith and Disbelief,” ch. on “Worship”, narrative 5, p. 131.
[1]: Misbāh al-Mutahajjid, p. 778 (Supplication of Kumayl).
Chapter 4: Refuting A Group Of Ignorants
Now as you have got acquainted with the stages of sincerity and states of the acts of worship to some extent, get ready to acquire them, since to have knowledge without putting it to practice is worthless, and knowledge is a stronger evidence against the claimant and he is more exposed to argument. Alas! It is regretted that we are completely deprived
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of the divine knowledge, the spiritual states of the people of Allah and the lofty positions of the men of heart.
A group of us completely deny all the states and regard their people to be erroneous, and their acts bātil [false] and worthless. They even take those who mention them with admiration, or invite to their states, to be forgers and their invitation to be a paradox. There is no hope in drawing the attention of such groups to their own faults and shortcomings, and in waking them up:
“Surely you cannot guide everyone whom you love;” [1]
“…You cannot make those in the graves hear. ” [2]
Yes, those who, like the helpless writer, know nothing at all, and whose hearts are not living up to the life of knowledge and divine love, are but dead ones, for whom the bodily covers are their rotten graves. This dust of the body and dark narrowness of the skeleton have shut them off from all the worlds of light and light upon light:
“…And he for whom Allah has not assigned light, for him there is no light. ” [3]
Much as you try to recite of hadīths and of the Qur'an to these groups concerning divine affection and love and concerning longing for meeting [Him], and exclusively being attached to Him, they still try to interpret, justify and explain them according to their own opinions. All those āyahs about meeting Allah and divine love they interpret to be a meeting with the trees of Paradise
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and the beautiful women.
I wonder what these groups would do with the texts of the Sha'bāniyyah Supplication, which says: “O Allah! Grant me to be completely devoted to you, and lighten the eyes of our hearts with the light of looking at You until the eyes of the hearts penetrate the barriers of light to reach the Source of Greatness, and our souls hang to the Might of Your Sanctity. O Allah! Make me one of those whom You called and he responded, and when You looked at him, he was stunned because of Your Majesty. ” [1]
So, what do “barriers of light” mean? Does “looking at Allah” mean looking at the palaces of Paradise? Does “the Source of Greatness” mean heavenly palaces? Does “the hanging of the souls to the Might of Sanctity” mean hanging to the skirts of the houris for sensual desires? This “being stunned because of His Majesty”, does it mean being spellbound at the beauties of the women of Paradise?
Those ecstasies and faintings which used to befall the Messenger of Allah (s) during his ascending salāt, and those lights of grandeur, and the things loftier than them, which he used to discern, in that meeting in which the Archangel Gabriel ('a) was not admitted and he dared not to advance even for an inch farther, were those ecstasies for one of the very good women? Or did he discern lights like those of the sun and the moon or much brighter? That sound heart, which
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was referred to by the infallible [ma'sūm] ('a) in explaining the verse:
“Except him who comes to Allah with a sound heart,” [1]
By saying: “A sound heart is the one which meets Allah while there is nothing in it save Him,” [2] does it mean that “there is nothing in it save Allah” denotes “nothing save the generosity of Allah,” which is to mean an allusion to “nothing save [say] pearls and apricots”?
Woe to me for letting the rein of the pen be loose and engage in ecstatic phrases. But, by the life of the beloved, no particular aim was intended by those words, except that there might be, for my brothers in faith, especially the learned, a sort of warning, so that they might not, at least, deny the states of the people of Allah, for such a denial would be the origin of every wretchedness and misfortune.
We did not intend to say who Ahlullāh [the people of Allah] are. Actually, our intention was that their states should not be denied. As to who the owners of those states are, Allah alone knows them, since it is a matter of which no one is informed: “The one who got an information did not come back. ” [3]
There is another group who do not deny the states of the people of knowledge and are not against the people of Allah. But their indulgence in worldly matters, trying to obtain them, and their taking to the transient pleasures,
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have prevented them from acquiring knowledge, practice, intellectual intuition [dhawq] and ecstasy [hāl].
They are like those sick people who do know they are sick, but their stomach would not let them be cautious and accept taking bitter medicine, while the former group are like the patients who would never believe in the existence of such patients and such a disease in actuality, and despite the fact that they themselves are afflicted with this disease, they deny its existence.
Another group took to acquiring knowledge and engaged in learning theories, but as regards the truths of knowledge and the states of the people of Allah, they satisfied themselves with terms and vocabularies, and with the gaudiness of phrases and expressions. They tied themselves and other wretched ones in the chains of words and terms, and out of all “states,” they satisfied themselves with mere talk.
Among them there are a few who do know themselves, but, in order to preside over some other unfortunate persons, they use these meaningless terms as a means of winning a living, and, with their deceitful expressions and attractive talks, they capture the pure hearts of the servants of Allah. These are the human Satans whose harm is no less than that of the accursed Iblīs himself against the servants of Allah.
These unfortunate ones do not know that the hearts of the servants of Allah are the abode of Allah, and no one has the right to occupy them. They are usurpers of Allah's abode and
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destroyers of the real ka'bah. They carve out idols and place them in the hearts of the servants of Allah, which are the ka'bah, or rather al-Bayt al-Ma'mūr [Allah's Populous House]. They are the sick people who pretend to be physicians, and involve the servants of Allah in diverse deadly diseases.
The members of this group are distinguished for being more interested in guiding the wealthy people and the notable personalities than in guiding the poor and the indigent, and their followers are more of the well-off and notable people. Even they themselves appear in the apparel of the wealthy people. They play on such deceptive talks that while they are polluted with a thousand kinds of mundane impurities, they can show themselves as purifiers and of the people of Allah. The wretched fools and their followers close their eyes against all their tangible faults, and flatter themselves with empty terms and utterances.
Now as we have reached this stage of our speech, it is worthwhile to relate one or two hadīths narrated in this respect, although it would be out of the content of our discourse. However, getting the blessings of the hadīths of Ahl al-Bayt ('a) is a good thing:
Shaykh as-Sadūq (may Allah have mercy upon him) in his book Al-Khisāl, quoting Abū 'Abdullāh [as-Sādiq] ('a) , says: “There are among the scholars those who like to compile their knowledge, and do not like to be quoted. These are at the first step of the Fire. Other scholars
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are proud when they admonish, but they disdain being admonished. These are at the second step of Fire. Some scholars prefer to put their knowledge at the disposal of the noble and the wealthy, excluding the poor from it. These are at the third step of the Fire.
Other scholars behave like the tyrants and the monarchs in their knowledge, and if they were redressed or neglected in some of their affairs, they would become angry. These are at the fourth step of the Fire. Some scholars look for the hadīths of the Jews and the Christians in order to support their own knowledge and increase their own hadīths.
These are at the fifth step of the Fire. Other scholars appoint themselves to give out religious decrees, telling the people: “Ask me,” whereas they may not be right even in a single letter, and Allah does not like the pretentious. These are at the sixth step of the Fire. There are among the scholars those who take knowledge to be a sense of honor and intellect. These are at the seventh step of the Fire. ” [1]
Al-Kulaynī (may Allah have mercy upon him) , in his comprehensive [book] al-Kāfī, quoting Imām al-Bāqir ('a) , says: “The one who seeks knowledge in order to vie with the scholars, or to argue with the fool, or to attract the people to himself, let him have his seat in the Fire Presidency does not befit except its deserver. ” [2]
Also quoting Imām as-Sādiq ('a) he says: “Whenever
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you see a scholar loving this world accuse him of being against your religion, as the lover of a thing seeks to get what he loves. ” And he said: “Allah, the Exalted, revealed to David ('a): 'Do not place between Me and yourself a scholar who is infatuated with this world, as he would prevent you from the way of My love, for those are the robbers of My loving servants. The least I would do to them is to extract the sweetness of supplication to Me from their hearts. ” [1]
Those from among this group, who are not impostors or fraudulent, and are themselves sāliks on the road to the Hereafter, striving to acquire knowledge and high states, it sometimes happens that they are fooled by Satan, the highway robber, and get conceited, thinking that the states and knowledge [ma'ārif] are really nothing but the very scholarly terms and expressions which they themselves or others, have coined.
They spend the prime of their years and the best of their lives, in multiplicating those terms and composing books and papers, such as a group of versed mufassirs (exegetes of the Qur'an) who think that the advantage of the Qur'an is confined to recording a collection of different ways of its recitation, the meanings of its vocabularies and conjugation of its verbs, its verbal and moral beauties, aspects of its miraculous inimitability, its conventional meaning, and its different impressions on different persons, but they are completely ignorant of the Qur'an's message,
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its spiritual dimensions and divine knowledge [ma'ārif].
They are more like a sick man who has gone to a physician and received his prescription, and thinks that he will be treated by way of recording and preserving the recipe and by the mode of its ingredients. This disease will kill such people, for knowing the recipe and going to the doctor come to no avail at all.
O dear! All sciences are practical. Even the science of tawhīd (monotheism) also consists of cordial and formal acts. Tawhīd, grammatically, denotes turning plurality into singleness a spiritual and cordial act. Unless you recognize the real and the true cause in the multiplicity of acts, unless you have a truth-finding eye to discern Allah in nature, unless you regard the natural and non-natural multiplicities as perished [fānī] in Allah and His acts, and unless the authority of Allah's Unity of Acts has not spread its banner in your heart, you will be far away from purity, sincerity, clearness and purification, as well as from tawhīd.
All of the hypocrisy of acts and most of the cordial hypocrisies are caused by the incompleteness of the unity of acts. The one who regards the weak and unfortunate people to be effective in this world, and occupying the domain of Allah, how can he regard himself in no need of attracting their hearts, and purge and purify his act from Satan's polytheism? You will have to make the spring clean so that clear water may come out
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of it, as otherwise, from a muddy spring you may not expect to get clear water.
If you regard the hearts of Allah's servants to be at the disposal of Allah, and make your heart taste the meaning of: “O You Who change the hearts,” and let your heart hear it, you, with all your weakness and helplessness, will not try to capture the hearts. If you make your heart understand the truth of
“…In His Hand is the dominion of everything,” [1]
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[1]: Sūrah al-Qasas 28: 56.
[2]: Sūrah Fātir 35: 22.
[3]: Sūrah an-Nūr 24: 40.
[1]: Refer to footnote 5.
[1]: Sūrah ash-Shu'arā' 26: 89
[2]: Usūl al-Kāfī, vol. 3, “Book of Faith and Disbelief,” ch. on “Sincerity,” hadīth 5, p. 26.
[3]: “Those who claim to be in quest of it are uninformed,
The one who got an information did not come back. ” Sa'dī
[1]: Al-Khisāl , vol. 2, ch. 7, hadīth 33, p. 352.
[2]: Usūl al-Kāfī, vol. 1, “Book of the Merit of Knowledge,” ch. on “The One who Gains His Living from His Knowledge,” hadīth 6, p. 59.
[1]: Ibid. , hadīth 4.
[1]: Sūrah Yā-Sīn 36: 83
“His is the (whole) dominion,” [2]
And
“In His Hand is the dominion,” [3]
You will need not attract any hearts, nor think that you are in need of the weak hearts and the weak people, and you will attain a state of cordial satisfaction. You felt yourself being in need of something, and took the people to be undoers of knotty problems, and thus you thought you needed to attract the hearts of the people, thinking that by pretending holiness, you would have at your disposal the hearts of the people.
Hence, you needed to be a hypocrite. Had you taken Allah to be the solver of all difficulties, and that you do not have the universe at your disposal, you would not have needed those acts of polytheism.
O you, the polytheist who claim to be a monotheist! O you, an Iblīs [a devil] appearing in the shape of a human being! You have inherited this legacy from the accursed Satan, who, thinking himself effective, calls
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out:
“I will lead them astray” [1] .
That wretched, miserable being is wrapped in veils of polytheism and self-conceit. Those who believe themselves and the world to be independent and not under management, neither controlled nor owned, have inherited that from Iblīs' mischief. So, wake up from [your] deep sleep and convey to your heart the noble āyahs of the Divine Book, the Lord's Luminous Page.
These great āyahs have been sent down for me and you to wake up, yet, we confine all our shares to reciting it in formal artistic intonation, disregarding its informative knowledge, until Satan overcomes and rules us such that we become under his control.
For the time being, we end the discourse here, leaving it for a later time. We shall, inshā' Allāh, talk about the disciplines of recitation, opening the way for ourselves and for the servants of Allah to be benefited by the Glorious Qur'an, with Allah's permission and His good help. Was-salām [And that is an end to the matter].
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[2]: Sūrah Fātir 35: 13
[3]: Sūrah al-Mulk 67: 1
[1]: Sūrah Sād 38: 82
Chapter 5: Some Other Stages Of Sincerity
Point
Now as the string of the speech has reached this point, I have but to state some other stages of sincerity befitting this state.
One of the stages of sincerity is to purge the act from thinking of deserving a reward. The counterfeit of it is the act blemished with demanding the expected reward. This is not free from a degree of admiring the act, and the sālik is to rid himself of it. The assumption of deserving reward is caused by the
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deficiency in one's knowledge of his condition and of the right of Allah, the Exalted.
This is also a fruit of the satanic evil tree stemming from being proud of oneself, one's act, I-ness and selfishness. How hopeless man is! As long as he is wrapped in the veils of being proud of his acts, believing them to be of his own, and regarding himself the manager of the affairs, he will not be cured from this disease, and will not be able to purge his act and purify his intention.
Therefore, the sālik is to strive to inform his heart, through cordial austerity and mental and gnostic conduct, that all acts are of Allah's blessings and gifts which He carries out by the hand of His servant. Should the Unity of Acts get fixed in the heart of the sālik, he would not regard his acts as to be of himself, therefore he would not demand any reward, and, actually, he would regard the reward to be a favor and the blessings to be new beginnings.
This divine delicacy is frequently stated in the words of the pure Imāms ('a) , especially in as-Sahīfah as-Sajjadiyyah (a book of invocations and supplications by Imām 'Alī ibn-Husayn as-Sajjād) , a divine and luminous book, which has descended from the gnostic heaven of the knower of Allah, the luminous intellect, Sayyid as-Sājidīn [the Master of the Prostrating Worshippers], for the sake of salvation of the servants of Allah from the prison of nature,
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demonstrating the discipline of servitude and of being at the service of the Lord. In the thirty-second invocation he says: “…so praise be to you for your beginning with great favors, and for Your inspiring gratitude for [Your] benevolence. ” [1]
He also says on another occasion: “…since all your benevolence is favor and every one of your blessings is a new beginning. ” [2]
In Misbāh ash-Sharī'ah it is said: “The least limit of sincerity is the servant's doing all his best, then he should not attach to his act [of worship] any value with Allah, by which he would impose on his Lord [to give him] a reward for his act. ” [3]
Another stage of sincerity is to purge the act from demanding much and being pleased with it and depending on it. This is also one of the important tasks of the sālik, lest he should be retained back from joining the caravan of the travelers to Allah, confining himself to the dark dungeon of nature. This is a situation stemming from the vile satanic tree, and from the selfishness inherited from the legacy of Satan who has said:
“You created me of fire and created him of clay. ” [4]
This is but man's ignorance of his own state [maqām] and of the state [maqām] of Allah, the Glorified.
If this wretched “possible (existent) ” could only recognize his own state of deficiency, incapability, weakness and helplessness, and realize Allah's state of greatness, grandeur and perfection, he would never boast
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of his act and of performing an act. Wretched! His act [of worship], which would be worth only a few pence for a whole year, should it prove to be complete and correct, he would ask, for only two of its rak'ats, unlimited expectations. It is this expectation and much demanding that originates many immoralities and other acts of mischief, which cannot be mentioned here for fear of becoming lengthy.
The noble hadīths frequently refer to this subject, as is in the noble al-Kāfī, quoting Imām Mūsā ibn Ja'far ('a) to have said to some of his sons: “My son, you are to be diligent, never to clear yourself from falling short of fully worshipping and obeying Allah, the Most High, for He can never be worshipped as He deserves. ” [1]
In another hadīth, he ('a) said: “Any act you do for Allah, take yourself as falling short of it, since all the people, in their acts, between themselves and Allah, are derelict [muqassir], except the one whom Allah, the Exalted, protects against that. ” [2]
He ('a) is also quoted to have said: “Do not consider plenty the plenty good deeds. ” [3]
The complete Sahīfah, describing the angels, says: “Those who, looking at Hell breathe out to the people of disobedience, say “Glory to you, O Allah, we have not worshipped you as you deserve to be worshipped. ” [4]
O you helpless! When the Messenger of Allah (s) , who was the most knowledgeable among Allah's creatures, and whose act [of
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worship] was the most luminous and the greatest of all others', admitted his shortcoming and inability, and who says: “We have not known You as You ought to be, and we have not worshipped You as You deserve it,” [1] and when the infallible Imāms ('a) , in the Presence of His Sanctity, display their shortcomings and deficiencies, what can a tiny gnat do? [2]
Yes, their status and knowledge urged them to admit the incapability of “the possible existent” and the Greatness and Glory of the “Necessary Existent”, Allah, the Exalted, whereas we, the helpless, because of ignorance and diverse veils, arrogantly show off our ostentation and pride in our acts. Glory be to Allah! How right Amīr al-Mu'minīn 'Alī ('a) was when he said: “Man's self-admiration is one of the enviers of his intellect. ” [3]
Is it not irrational that Satan should make obscure for us a necessary matter, and we should not try to intellectually reason it? We ourselves, know, of necessity, that our acts [of worship] and the acts of mankind as a whole, as well as the acts of the angels of Allah, and the spiritual people, cannot be compared with the acts of the Messenger of Allah (s) and the Imāms of guidance ('a) , as ours can have no value whatsoever, and cannot be of any regard at all.
Yet, those great ones confess their shortcomings and do not conceal their incapability of performing the worship due to Allah, the Exalted, according to so many successive hadīths. These
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two necessary cases make us to conclude that we should not be pleased with any of our acts. Or even if we spend as long as the life of the world in worshipping and in acts of obedience, we should still be ashamed, abashed and disgraced.
Nevertheless, Satan has so deeply established himself in our hearts, and so strongly has his control over our minds and senses, that the states [ahwāl] of our hearts have been changed to the contrary, let alone our failure in deriving the necessary conclusions from those preliminaries.
The great man ('Alī ibn Abī Tālib) , whose strike on the Day of the Trench was more merited than the worship of all jinn and ins (mankind) , according to the confirmation of the Messenger of Allah (s) [1] and 'Alī ibn al-Husayn, with all his worships and austerities, though known to be the greatest worshipper of all Allah's creatures, shows his inability to attain his state of worshipping [2] declares his shortcoming in this respect more than we do.
The Messenger of Allah (s) at whose threshold 'Alī al-Murtadā and all, other than Allah, are servants and live on the crumblings of his blessed table of knowledge and are the students of his teachings after receiving the cloak of honor of the Final Prophethood, the complete circulation of perfection and the last brick of knowledge and tawhīd, continued, for ten years, to stand on his feet in Hirā cave, performing his worshippings in obedience to Allah, until his feet
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swelled such that Allah revealed:
“Tā-Hā, We have not sent down the Qur'an upon you that you should be distressed,” [1]
i. e.: “O “pure” and “guide”! We did not reveal the Qur'an to you to cause you difficulty. You are pure and you guide the people, and if they disobey you, it is because of their own shortcoming and misfortune, not because of any shortcoming in your conduct or guidance. ” Nevertheless, he still announces his inability and falling short.
Sayyid ibn Tāwūs (may his soul be sanctified) quotes from 'Alī ibn al-Husayn ('a) a hadīth which we shall relate to honor our thesis and, although it is a bit lengthy, since it is an explanation of the position of that master, yet the smelling sense of the souls will be scented by it and the palate of the hearts will take a delight in it.
He (may his soul be sanctified) , quoting az-Zahrī, in Fath al-Abwāb, says: “I, together with 'Alī ibn al-Husayn ('a) , called upon 'Abdul Malik ibn Marwan. ’Abdul Malik, regarding it as magnificent to see the mark of prostration between the two eyes of 'Alī ibn al-Husayn ('a) , said: “O Abū Muhammad, perseverance is obvious on your face, and Allah has already been beneficent to you, as you are a part of the Messenger of Allah (s) , a close relative with a firm relation to him, and you have a great favor upon your family and your contemporaries.
You have been given such merits, knowledge,
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godliness and piety that have been given to no one like you or before you, except your past ancestors. ” He continued praising and extolling him. 'Alī ibn al-Husayn ('a) said: “All that which you have described is of Allah's favor, support and grace. But how is [my] thanking Him on what He has favored [me], O Amīr al- Mu'minīn? The Messenger of Allah (s) used to stand in his salāt on his feet till they got swollen, and he remained thirsty during his fasting such that his mouth would dry up.
He was asked: “O Messenger of Allah! Did not Allah forgive what has passed and what is to come of your sins? ” He replied: “Am I not to be a thankful servant? ” Praise be to Allah for what He has favored us with and for His testing us, and praise be to Him in the Hereafter and in this world. By Allah, even if my limbs were cut to pieces and my eyeballs ran down my chest just to pay tribute to Allah, the Most Glorified, for just a tenth of one tenth of a single one of all His favors, which no reckoner can reckon, nor the praise of the praisers can pay the tribute due to a single one of them, I could not pay the due tribute to Him.
Never, by Allah, unless He grants me that nothing should keep me from praising and remembering Him all days and nights, secretly and publicly. Had I not been under
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obligations to my family and to other people, in particular and in general, who have rights from me, and which I cannot but fulfill to them as it is possible and as is in my capacity, I would have turned my eye to the heaven, and my heart to Allah, and then I would have never taken them back till He would take my breath He is the best of judges. ” Then he ('a) wept, and so did 'Abdul Malik…” as the hadīth goes. [1]
We forgo mentioning other stages of sincerity, which do not suit the position of these papers, lest it should be lengthy and boring.
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[1]: As-Sahīfah as-Sajjadiyyah, invocation 32
[2]: Ibid. , invocation 12.
[3]: Misbāh ash-Sharī'ah, ch. 76, on “Sincerity. ”
[4]: Sūrah al-A'rāf 7: 12; Sūrah Sād 38: 76.
[1]: Usūl al-Kāfī, vol. 3, “Book of Faith and Disbelief,” ch. on “Admitting Shortcomings,” hadīth 1, p. 116.
[2]: Ibid. , hadīth 4.
[3]: Ibid. , vol. 3, “Book of Faith and Disbelief”, ch. on “Slighting the Sin,” hadīth 2, p. 394; also vol. 4, ch. on “Reckoning the Deeds,” hadīth 17, p. 196.
[4]: As-Sahīfah as-Sajjadiyyah, invocation 3.
[1]: Mir'āt 'ul-'Uqūl vol. 8, “Book of Faith and Disbelief,” ch. on “Thanks-Giving,” p. 146.
[2]: “Where a falcon drops its feathers, what can a tiny gnat do? ” Amthāl and Hikam, by Dehkhudā, vol. 2, p. 579. The poet's name is not mentioned.
[3]: Nahj al-Balāghah, ed. by Fayd al-Islām, maxim 203, p. 1172.
[1]: Bihār al-Anwār, vol. 39, ”Tārīkh-i Amīr al-Mu'minīn,” p. 2.
[2]: Ibid. , vol. 46, ”Tārīkh-i 'Alī ibn al-Husayn” ch. 5, hadīth 65, p. 75.
[1]: Sūrah Tā-Hā 20: 1, 2.
[1]: Bihār al-Anwār, vol. 46, “Fath al-Abwāb,” p. 57.
point
Know that for the recitation during this spiritual journey and divine ascension there are degrees and stages, and here we shall suffice ourselves with some of them.
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First, the reciter is one who pays no attention to other than improving the recitation and bettering the expression. His only care is for the good utterance of these words and correct pronunciation of the letters from their correct outlets so that a duty can be performed and an order be fulfilled. It is well known that the task for such persons is heavy and difficult; their hearts are unwilling and their insides are deviated.
These have no share of worship, though they are not punished with the punishment of the deserter [of the salāt], unless from the invisible treasure a grace appears and the said chattering receives a beneficence and a favor. It sometimes happens that this group, while their tongues are busy remembering Allah, their hearts are completely away from that, engaged in the mundane multiplicity and worldly matters.
As a matter of fact, the people in this group are outwardly in the salāt, while inwardly and actually they are busy with this world and worldly desires and whims. Sometimes it also happens that their hearts busy themselves thinking about correcting the formal shape of the salāt. In this case they are busy, by both the tongue and the heart, with the form of the salāt, and it is acceptable and agreeable from them.
The second group is those who would not be contented with that limit and take the salāt to be a means of remembering Allah, and the reciting to be praising and glorifying Him.
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This group is of many ranks and degrees, the mentioning of which would be lengthy. Probably it is this group to which the following Divine Hadīth refers:
“I have divided the salāt between Me and My servant, half of it for Me and half of it for My servant. When he says: 'In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful,' Allah will say: 'My servant has remembered Me,' and when he says: 'All praise is for Allah,' Allah says: 'My servant has praised and glorified Me,' and this is the meaning of 'Allah hears from the one who praises Him. '
And when he says: 'The Beneficent, the Merciful,' Allah says: 'My servant aggrandized Me. And when he says: 'Master of the Day of Judgment,' Allah says: 'My servant glorified Me. ' [In another version: 'My servant has entrusted himself to Me']. And when he says: 'you do we worship and You do we seek help from,' Allah says: 'This is between Me and My servant. ' And when he says: 'Guide us to the straight path,' Allah says: 'My servant has this right, and it is granted to him. ” [1]
Now as the salāt, according to this noble hadīth, is divided between Allah and the servant, the servant has to completely pay what is due to Him, according to the discipline of servitude stated in this noble hadīth, so that Allah, the Exalted, may treat him as is becoming of His Lordly graces, since He says:
“And fulfill my covenant; I shall fulfill
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your covenant. ” [1]
Allah, the Exalted, confined the disciplines of servitude in recitation to four pillars:
The first one is “remembrance” [tadhakkur] which is to happen by “In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful,” and the sālik servant should look at the entire “House of Realization” [dār-i tahaqquq] as a name perished in the Named [musammā].
He should teach his heart to be seeking the Haqq and wanting the Haqq in every particle of “the possibles” [mumkināt], and bring the natural disposition of learning the names which is fixed in the nature of his essence according to the requirement of the universality of the growth [nash'ah] and its being the manifestation of the Great Name of Allah, to which Allah refers by saying: “And He taught Adam all the names,” [2] to the state of actuality and manifestation. Such a state is the result of having privacy with Allah and of deep remembrance and contemplating the divine affairs [shu'ūn], to the extent that the heart becomes a complete divine servant such that there can be found in every nook of it no name except that of Allah, the Exalted.
This is a stage of perishing in divinity that (even) the relapsed and hard hearts of the deniers cannot deny what we have just said, unless their denial be satanic, for such hearts feel repulsion, by nature, on hearing Allah's name or His remembrance, may God save us from that! If a word of divine knowledge or one of Allah's Names
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was mentioned, they would feel distressed.
They would not open the eyes of their hearts except at the desires of the appetites of the stomach and sex. There are among these people those who admit for the prophets and holy men [awliyā] ('a) nothing other than corporeal states and bodily Paradise, i. e. satisfying the animal desire. They take the greatness of the states of the other world to be similar to the greatness of this world, with vast orchards, running rivers and a multitude of houris and youths and palaces.
When there is a talk about love, affection and divine attraction, they assault the speaker with vulgar language and ugly words, as if they themselves have been insulted and they were retaliating. These people block the way of humanity and they are the thorns of the road to knowing Allah, and the satans who deceive men, hindering groups upon groups of the servants of Allah from Allah, His names, His attributes, His remembrance and remembering, and directing their attentions to the animal stomach and sexual desires.
They are satanic agents who sit in ambush on the straight path of Allah according to the āyah:
“I shall surely lurk in ambush for them on your straight path,” [1]
In order to prevent the servants of Allah from getting familiar with their Lord and from ridding themselves of the darkness of animal desires, including inclination towards houris and palaces. These people may resort to evidences from the invocations of the prophets and the infallible
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Ahl al-Bayt ('a) in which they also demand houris and palaces.
But this is due to the shortcomings of this group who recognize no difference between loving Allah's grace, which is loved because it is the gift of the Beloved, in itself being a sign of affection and care, and merely loving the houris and palaces independently, which is within the nature of the animal desire. Loving Allah's gifts is Loving Allah, which consequently covers the favors of Allah and His graces:
I love the whole world, for the whole world is of Him. [1]
The love of the abode did not infatuate me, but the love of the one who resides therein. [2]
Otherwise, what would, 'Alī ibn Abī Tālib ('a) do with houris and palaces? How could that great man be associated with the appetites of the self and the animal desires? The one whose worship is that of a free man, his reward cannot be that of traders. The rein of the pen snapped and I wandered away from the main subject.
In general, the one who is accustomed to reciting divine āyahs and names from the Book of divine genesis and record, his heart will gradually take the form of remembrance and of an āyah, and the interior of his essence will turn out to be Allah's remembrance, His name and His āyah, as they interpret “remembrance” to be the noble Prophet and 'Alī ibn Abī Tālib ('a) , and “The Beautiful Names” to be the Imāms
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of guidance ('a). Āyatullāh is also interpreted to be those great men and it is conformed to them.
They are the divine āyahs, the Beautiful Names of Allah and the great remembrance of Allah. The state of “remembrance” is such a high one that it is beyond the patience of explanation and the limits of writing and recording. It suffices for the people of knowledge and divine attraction, and the people of affection and love, as in the āyah:
“Therefore remember Me; I shall remember you. ” [1]
Allah, the Exalted, tells Moses ('a): “I am the companion of whoever remembers Me. ” [2] A narrative in al-Kāfī says that the Messenger of Allah (s) said: “Whoever remembers Allah frequently, He will like him. ” [3]
In Wasā'il ash-Shī'ah, Imām Ja'far as-Sādiq is quoted to have said that Allah, the Exalted, said: “O son of Adam, remember Me in yourself; I will remember you in Myself. O son of Adam, remember Me in privacy, I will remember you in privacy. O son of Adam, remember Me in public, I will remember you in a public better than yours. ” He also said: “No servant remembers Allah in the presence of the people unless Allah remembers him in the presence of the angels. ” [4]
The second pillar is “praising” Allah [tahmīd], as is the musallī's saying: “All praise is for Allah, the Lord of the Worlds. ”
Know that when the musallī attains the state of “remembrance”, and regards all the particles of the beings, and the high
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and low creatures, to be divine names, and when he dismisses from his heart the idea of being self-sufficient, and looks at the beings of the visible and invisible worlds with the eye of dependence, he will be in the stage of “praising,” and his heart will confess that all kinds of praising exclusively belong to the Divine Essence, and the others have no share of it, because they have no personal perfection requiring any sort of praising and glorifying. We shall explain in detail this divine grace, in our interpretation of this blessed sūrah, inshā'allāh (Allah willing).
The third pillar is “magnifying” [ta'zīm], which is established by “The Beneficent, the Merciful. ” When the servant traveling to Allah has, under the pillar of “praising”, confined all praise to Allah, excluding the existential multiplicities from perfection and praise, he will get nearer to the horizon of Oneness, his eye of plurality will gradually get blind to multiplicity, and the form of Beneficence [rahmāniyyat] which is the expansion of the existence and the form of Mercifulness [rahīmiyyat] which is the expansion of the perfection of the existence will be manifested to his heart, and he will call Allah by the two names, which are all- embracing and comprehensive, and in which multiplicities are vanished. So, the manifestation of perfection causes the heart to feel awe from the Beauty, and thus, Allah's greatness is implanted in his heart.
As this condition is fixed, he will move to the fourth pillar, which is the state
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of “sanctifying” [taqdīs], and it is actually “glorifying” [tamhīd]. In other words, it is entrusting the affairs to Allah, that is, discerning the position of Ownership and Omnipotence of Allah, and the falling down of the dust of plurality [kathrat] and the breaking of the idols of the heart and the appearance of the owner of the house of the heart, and possessing it with no Satanic intruding.
In this condition he reaches the stage of privacy, and there will be no veil between the servant and Allah, and “You do we worship and You do we seek help from,” takes place in that particular privacy and the meeting of familiarity. For this reason He said: “This is between Me and My servant. ” And when the everlasting favor encompasses him and awakens him, he will demand consistency of this stage and establishment [tamkīn] of His Presence, by requesting: “Guide us to the straight path,” in which, “Guide us” is interpreted to mean: “Make us firm, consistent and steady. ”
This is for those who have slipped out of the veil and attained “the Eternally Wanted” [matlūb-i azal]. As to us, the people of the veil, we will have to ask Allah, the Exalted, for guidance with its ordinary concept. This may further be explained in the exegesis of the blessed sūrah of al-Hamd, inshā'allāh (Allah willing).
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[1]: Al-Mahajjat al-Baydā', vol. 1, p. 388; Bihār al-Anwār, vol. 92, p. 226. Sahīh Muslim, vol. 2, p. 92, with differences in expression.
[1]: Sūrah al-Baqarah 2: 40.
[2]: Ibid. , 31.
[1]: Sūrah al-A'rāf 7: 16.
[1]: This is the second hemistich of a line from Sa'dī's poetry, as below:
By the world I am cheerful as the world is cheerful by Him,
I love the whole world as the whole world is of Him.
[2]: A line from the poetry of Majnūn 'Āmirī (Qays ibn al-Mulawwah al-'Āmirī). Jamī' ash-Shawāhid, p. 220, ch. “The W with the M. ”
[1]: Sūrah al-Baqarah 2: 152
[2]: Usūl al-Kāfī, vol. 4, p. 255,“Book of Invocation,”ch. on “That Which is Obligatory of Remembering Allah,” hadīth 4.
[3]: Ibid. , hadīth 3.
[4]: Wasā'il ash-Shī'ah, vol. 4, “Book of the Salāt”, sec. on “Remembrance,” ch. 7, hadīth 4, p. 1185.
Completion
From the noble Divine Hadīth [1] [hadīth-i qudsī] it appears that the salāt is completely divided between Allah and the servant, and only the
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sūrah of al-Hamd was given as an example. So, we may add, for example, that the takbīrs of the salāt, whether the opening takbīrs or the other ones which are said during changing states in the salāt, are the share of Divinity, the portion of the Sacred Essence.
If the servant traveling to Allah performed this duty of servitude and carried out what was due to Divinity as his capacity was capable of, Allah, the Exalted, with His everlasting special favors, would also grant His servant his due share, which is the opening of the door of intimacy and revelation, as is referred to in the noble hadīth in Misbāh ash-Sharī'ah: “As you utter the takbīr, regard small all creatures in relation to the greatness of Allah,” and it adds: “Examine your heart during the salāt.
If you tasted the sweetness of the salāt, and if in your soul you felt pleased and gay by it, and your heart enjoyed the supplication to Allah and conversing with Him, know that Allah has approved your takbīrs. Otherwise, without feeling pleasure in supplication, and being deprived of tasting the sweetness of worship, you should know that Allah has denied you and dismissed you from His Threshold. ” [1]
Consequently, in each one of the acts and states of the salāt, there is a share for Allah, and the servant is to perform it, being the disciplines of servitude at that stage. The servant also has his share, which, after performing what the discipline of servitude
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requires, Allah, out of His covert grace and overt mercy, will bestow upon him His favor. If in these divine times he found himself deprived of His special favors, he must know that he did not act according to the disciplines of servitude.
The relevant sign for the common people is that the heart does not taste the sweetness of supplication and the delicacy of worship, and he is deprived of the cheerfulness, pleasure and devotion to Allah. The worship that is void of delight and pleasure is spiritless, and it will not be useful for the heart.
So, dear, make your heart familiar with the disciplines of servitude, and let your soul [rūh] taste the sweetness of remembering Allah. This divine grace, at the beginning, takes place through intense remembrance and intimacy. During remembrance the heart must not be dead or overcome by negligence. Having taught your heart to be familiar with remembrance, the divine favors will gradually be bestowed upon you, and the heavenly doors will be opened to you, and this is marked by repulsion from this world, by inclination towards the world of eternity, and by preparedness for death before its arrival.
O Allah! Grant us to have a share of tasting the pleasure of supplicating to you and the sweetness of conversing with you. Place us among the remembering group and in the circle of those who are devoted to Your Glorified Sanctity, and bestow upon our dead hearts an everlasting life, and make us
break off the others and make us inclined to be devoted to You, surely You are the Giver of favor and grace.
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[1]: Refer to footnote 351
[1]: Misbāh ash-Sharī'ah, ch. 13, “At Ending the Salāt”; Al-Mahajjat al-Baydā,' printed by as-Sadūq Library, vol. 1, p. 385; Mustadrak al-Wasā'il, “The Book of as-Salāt,” sec. on “The Acts of the Salāt,” ch. 2, hadīth 9.
point
Allah, the Exalted, says:
“And when you recite the Qur'an take refuge in Allah from the outcast Satan. He has no authority over those who believe and on their Lord rely. His authority is only over those who befriend him and those who associate partner with Him. ” [1]
Among the important disciplines of recitation, especially the recitation in the salāt, which is a spiritual journey to Allah, the real ascension and the ladder to reach the people of Allah, is the isti'ādhah, seeking refuge in Allah, from the outcast Satan, who is the thorn of the road to knowledge, and the one who blocks the way of the sālik's travel to Allah, as Allah, the Exalted, says through him, in the blessed sūrah of al-'Arāf:
“He said: 'As you have led me astray, I shall lurk in ambush for them on your straight path. ” [2]
He has sworn to lurk for the sons of Adam on the straight path to prevent them from entering it. So, the salāt, which is the straight path of humanity and the ascension for reaching Allah, cannot take place without isti'ādhah from this brigand, and without taking refuge in the fortified fort of Divinity from his evil, there can be no security. This isti'ādhah, this taking refuge, cannot be implemented with empty utterances, a lifeless form or a world with no Hereafter.
It is observed that
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there were people who did utter these words for forty or fifty years, yet they were not saved from the evil of this bandit, and, actually, in their conducts and acts, and even in their beliefs they followed Satan and imitated him. Had we really taken refuge from the evils of this wicked one, the Sacred Essence of Allah, the Exalted, Who is the Absolute Gracious, the Omnipotent, the All-Merciful, the All-Knowing and Generous, would have granted us His protection, and our faith, moralities and deeds would have been amended.
So, we must know that our being left behind the travelers on the road to Allah is due to Satan's temptations and because we have fallen under his control owing to our own shortcomings and inefficiency in applying the spiritual disciplines and acquiring the required conditions of the heart. So, it is because of this that we get nothing of the spiritual results and the external and internal effects of our invocations, supplications and worships.
From the noble āyahs of the Qur'an and the noble hadīths of the infallible Imāms (s) many disciplines can be discovered. But to count them all would need a complete scrutinizing research, which prolongs the discussion. It suffices us to mention only a few of them.
One of the important disciplines of isti'ādhah is “sincerity,” as Allah the Exalted, quotes Satan to have said:
“By your Might I will tempt them all, except Your sincere servants from among them. ” [1]
This “sincerity,” as is
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clear from this noble āyah, is something higher than the practical sincerity, whether by the heart or by the limbs, because, it is in the objective case [in its Arabic form = mukhlasīn]. Had it been for sincerity in action, it should have been in the nominative case.
Therefore, this sincerity is intended to denote the purification of the human personality with all the visible and invisible affairs, of whose emissions is the practical sincerity, although, at the beginning of the sulūk, this fact and divine grace would not easily take place except by difficult practical austerities, especially the cordial ones, which are its origin, as is referred to in the well-known hadīth: “The one who keeps being sincere to Allah for forty mornings, fountains of wisdom will flow from his heart to his tongue. ” [1]
So, whoever could sincerely devote himself to Allah for forty mornings which is the period of fermenting [takhmīr] the clay [tīnat] of which Adam was created, and the connection between these two is well-known to the people of knowledge and of heart and dedicate his cordial and formal acts sincerely to Allah, his heart will become godly, and the godly heart produces nothing other than fountains of wisdom.
Then, his tongue, which is the greatest interpreter of the heart, will speak wisdom. So, at the beginning, sincerity of the act leads to the purification of the heart, and when the heart becomes purified, the lights of Majesty and Beauty which are deposited by divine fermentation
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[takhmīr] in the human clay are reflected in the mirror of the heart and become manifest there, and from the innermost of the heart they appear on the external body.
In short, the sincerity, which frees one from the satanic authority, is devoting the identity of the soul [rūh] and the innermost of the heart to Allah, the Exalted. It is a reference to this that Imām 'Alī ('a) , in his Sha'bāniyyah Supplication, says: “O Allah, grant me complete devotion to you. ” [1]
When the heart reaches this stage of sincerity and it is cut off other than Allah, and in the kingdom of his existence there is no admission to other than Allah, Satan who approaches man by other than Allah's way will have no power over him, and Allah will admit him into His shelter, and he will be placed in the fortified fortress of divinity, as He says: “The expression 'there is no god but Allah' is My fort, so whoever enters My fort is safe from My torture. ” [2]
Entering the fort of 'there is no god but Allah' is of several degrees. Likewise, being safe from the torture is also of several degrees. So, the one who, externally, internally, cordially and formally, is admitted to Allah's fortress and under His protection, will be safe from all degrees of torture, including being veiled off Allah's Beauty and being separated from meeting the Beloved, the Most High and Almighty which veiledness and separation are at the top of
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the tortures.
Imām 'Alī ('a) , in the Kumayl Invocation, says: “Suppose that I can patiently bear your torment, how can I patiently bear separation from you? ” Our hand is short of that. The one who could reach that stage would be a real servant of Allah, under the vaults [domes] of divinity, and Allah, the Exalted, would manage his kingdom, getting him out of the Taghūt's patronage.
This is the dearest state for the men of Allah and the most special degree for the pure, and the others have no share of it. It is most likely that the owners of hard hearts among the deniers and of stiff souls among the obstinate, who are far away from such a state, deny it altogether and regard any talk about it to be false and in vain. Or they rather take such affairs, which are the delight of the holy men [awliyā'], and which are frequently mentioned by the Book and the Sunnah, to be God forbid! of the fabrications of the sūfis and false rumors of the literalists.
We, by referring to these states, which are, in fact, the states of the perfect ones, do not claim to have a share of them or look at them covetously, but we do so because to deny them is not agreeable to us, and we believe that mentioning the holy men [awliyā'] and their positions is effective in purging, saving and reforming the hearts, because good mention of the people of guardianship
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and knowledge causes affection, familiarity and close connection.
Such connection leads to mutual attraction [tajādhub], which, in its turn leads to co-intercession [tashāfu'], whose outward is getting out of the darkness of ignorance to the lights of guidance and knowledge, and its inward is the intercession in the Hereafter, because the intercession of the intercessors would not happen without close connection and inward co-attraction [tajādhub], since it would not be based on guess and bātil [falsehood].
However, despite the fact that this stage is not but for the perfect ones among the holy men [awliyā'] and the chosen ones [asfiyā'] ('a) , and that the perfect state of this stage is, in the origin [bil-'isālah], exclusively for the Seal of the Prophets (s) , the luminous and pure Ahmadian single [ahadī-yi ahmadī], Muhammadan collective [jamī'-i muhammadī] heart, and subordinately [bi 't-taba'iyyah], it is for the perfect and pure ones of the Ahl al-Bayt, yet the believers and the sincere ones are not to give up hoping for some of its degrees, and to be satisfied with formal and practical sincerity, and the external and juristic purity, because stopping in the stations is one of the masterpieces of Iblīs who is sitting at the entrance of the path of man and humanity, trying every possible means to prevent him from ascending to perfections and reaching higher stages.
So, one has to double his vigilance and strengthen his will, so that this divine light and grace may move from the outside to the
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inside, and from the visible to the invisible. The more stages of sincerity one passes, the better he will be stationed under Allah's protection, and the truth of isti'ādhah will be implemented, and the hands of the devilish Satan will be short of reaching him.
Hence, if you devoted the visible human form exclusively to Allah, and if you placed the external mundane armies of the soul, which are the powers dispersed in the kingdom of the body, under the shelter of Allah, and if you purified the seven earthly realms, which are the eye, the ear, the tongue, the stomach, the sexual organ, the hand, and the leg, from the impurities of disobedience and placed them at the disposal of Allah's angels, who are the divine armies, these realms would gradually become divine and under the command of Allah, until they also become Allah's angels, or get like Allah's angels
“Who do not disobey Allah in what He commands them, and do as they are commanded. ” [1]
Hence, the first degree of isti'ādhah takes place, and Satan and his soldiers leave the external kingdom and turn to the inside, assaulting the invisible powers of the soul. Thus, the sālik's task becomes harder and his sulūk stricter. So, his steps should be stronger, and his watchfulness more perfect. He is to take refuge in Allah, the Exalted, from the spiritual destructions, such as self-conceit, hypocrisy, arrogance, pride and the like, and to gradually start purifying his inside from the
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moral opacities and internal impurities.
In this stage, or rather in all stages, he is to be attentive to Allah's Unity of Acts, and to remind his heart of this divine grace and heavenly table [mā'idah], which are of the important matters of sulūk and of the pillars of 'urūj. He is also to make his heart taste the fact that Allah, the Exalted, is the owner of the heavens, the earth, the inside, the outside, the visible, and the invisible, so that the heart may get accustomed to His Unity in deity and deny any association in management [tasarruf] and be divinely concocted and theistically educated.
In this state the heart will find no asylum, refuge, sanctuary and help except with Allah alone, and, consequently and actually, he will seek refuge with Allah, the Sanctified State of Divinity. Unless he cuts off his heart from the others' management, and closes his eye of greed on other creatures, he cannot truthfully turn to get his refuge with Allah, and his claim will be a false one, and according to the method of he people of knowledge he will be regarded among the hypocrites, and ascribed to deceit and treason.
In this fearful valley [wādīyy] and dangerous Deep Ocean, if one takes advantage of the sayings of a godly wise man or a luminous gnostic, whose string of knowledge is connected to the perfect friends of Allah, concerning the Three Unities, it will be a good help to the inner heart.
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But the condition for taking that advantage is that he should do it regarding it as an āyah, a sign and sulūk to Allah, for otherwise it would become a thorn on the road and a veil covering the face of the Beloved. The Messenger of Allah (s) , as it is stated in the noble al-Kāfī, calls this knowledge an “indisputable āyah” [āyat-i muhkam]. [1]
Generally speaking, when the root of Allah's Unity of Acts is strongly implanted in the heart, and irrigated with the water of knowledge accompanied with nice deeds, which knock at the heart's door, its fruit will be remembering the state of divinity, and the heart will gradually become pure and ready for receiving actual manifestation.
When the house is free from the traitor, and the nest from the alien, the Owner of the house controls it and Allah's guarding hand brings the invisible and visible powers of the kingdom of the inside and the heart and of the outside kingdom of the body under its rule and authority, and the Satans are completely expelled from this stage, too, and the internal kingdom returns to its independence, which is being under Allah's shelter.
This is the second degree of the divine grace, the isti'ādhah. After this stage come other stages, such as, the isti'ādhah of the spirit and the isti'ādhah of the secret, which are out of the scope of these pages. Even what was said was of the overflowing of this servant's pen, or it
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[1]: Sūrah an-Nahl 16: 98-100
[2]: Sūrah al-A'rāf 7: 16
[1]: Sūrah Sād 38: 82-83.
[1]: Bihār al-Anwār, vol. 67, p. 242, “Book of Faith and Disbelief,” ch. on “Sincerity,” hadīth 10, quoted from 'Uyūnu Akhbār ar-Ridā, vol. 2, p. 69 (with a slight difference). The same subject is referred to in the latter book, hadīth 25, p. 249.
[1]: Bihār al-Anwār, vol. 91, p. 99.
[2]: At-Tawhīd, p. 25; Bihār al-Anwār, vol. 3, p. 13 and vol. 90, p. 192.
[1]: Sūrah at-Tahrim 66: 6.
[1]: “Knowledge is of three kinds: an indisputable āyah, a fair obligation and a current tradition. ” Usūl al-Kāfī, vol. 1, p. 37, “Book of the Merit of Knowledge,” ch. on “The Description of Knowledge and its Merits,” hadīth 1.
was written at the command of the pen of the Lord, Most High and Almighty, and to Him is the refuge.
Another discipline and condition of isti'ādhah is that which is referred to in the āyah stated at the beginning of this chapter, i. e. “faith” [īmān], which is other than knowledge, even though it is proved by means of philosophic proofs: “The legs of the argumentatives are of wood. ” [1]
Faith is a matter of the heart, and happens through intense remembrance, contemplation, intimacy and privacy with Allah. Despite the fact that Satan had knowledge about the Beginning and the Return, as the Qur'an says, he is counted with the disbelievers. If faith was this argumentative knowledge, those who possess this knowledge must be away from the intrusion of Satan, and the light of guidance of the Qur'an would illuminate their inside, whereas we notice that despite such marks, there is no sign of faith.
So, if we want to be out of Satan's control, and be under the protection of Allah, the Exalted, we must, by intense cordial austerity and continual, or frequent, proximity and privacy, bring the facts of faith to the heart in order to let it be divine. Then, having been so, it will be free from Satan's control, as Allah, the Exalted, says:
“Allah is the Guardian of those who believe. He brings them out of darkness into the light. ” [2]
So, the believers, whom Allah, the Exalted is the manager, the guardian of
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their inside and outside, their secret and their publicity, are free from Satan's control and enter into the Beneficent's kingdom.
He brings them out of all degrees of darkness to the absolute light from the darkness of disobedience and insolence, the darkness of the dirty moral impurities, the darkness of ignorance, disbelief, polytheism, self-deceit, selfishness, and self-admiration, to the light of obedience and worship, the light of virtuous characters, the light of knowledge, perfection, faith, monotheism, godliness, piety, and friendship with Allah.
Another one of its disciplines is “reliance” [tawakkul] on Allah, which is also part of faith and of the real lights of the grace of faith. It means entrusting the affairs to Allah, which results from the heart's belief in the Unity of Acts, whose details are out of the capacity of this book.
When the sālik servant finds no refuge and no shelter other than Allah, and believes that the management of the affairs is exclusively confined to His Sacred Essence, a certain condition of devotion, refuge and trust shows up in his heart, and his isti'ādhah becomes real. So, as he truthfully takes refuge in the strong fortress of the Lordship and divinity, He shall certainly protect him with His most spacious and generous mercy, for He is the possessor of great favor!
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[1]: The legs of the argumentatives are of wood, Wooden legs are quite shaky. Mawlawī
[2]: Sūrah al-Baqarah 2: 257.
Completion and Conclusion
We noted in this chapter that the truth of the isti'ādhah is a mood or state of mind that is created by a complete evident knowledge of Allah's Unity of Acts, and by believing
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in that Unity. That is, after he understood, by way of explicit and strong intellectual proofs and traditional evidences, quoted from the Qur'anic texts, and through the signs and the wonders of the Divine Book and noble hadīths, that the Power of Creation and independence of effectiveness, or rather, the very origin of effect, is exclusively confined to the Sacred Divine Essence, and other beings have no share of it, as is proved in its stance, he should convince his heart of it, and, with the pen of intellect, he should write on the page of his heart the truth of “There is no god but Allah, and there is no effecter [mu'aththir] in the [world of] existence except Allah. ”
When the heart takes in this grace of faith and proved fact, there appears in it a state of devotion and exclusivity [to Allah]. Believing that Satan is the highway robber of humanity and its staunch enemy, there appears in his heart an apprehensiveness, which is the reality of the isti'ādhah. And, as the tongue is the spokesman of the heart, it translates that state of apprehensiveness, with complete need and necessity in words: “I take refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan,” which it utters truthfully.
If there were no effects of these facts in the heart, and it was under the control of Satan, as well as the other parts of one's existing kingdom, the isti'ādhah also takes place, but with the management of Satan, and verbally he
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does say: “I take refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan,” but in fact, as it is an act of Satan himself, it is actually taking refuge in Satan from Allah, and the isti'ādhah performs its counter function, and Satan mocks at the one who utters the isti'ādhah a mockery whose result is known only after removing the cover and pushing aside the curtain of nature.
Such a person, whose isti'ādhah is merely verbal, is like the one who wants to take refuge from an endless hostile army in a strong fortress, but instead, he heads to the enemy turning away from the fortress, while he continues saying: “I take refuge in this fortress from the evil of the enemy. ” Such a person, besides being inflicted with the evil of the enemy, becomes subject to the enemy's mockery, too.
Section Four: The Discipline Of Reverence
One of the important disciplines of reciting the Divine Book, shared by the gnostic and the common man, and which brings about good results causing luminosity for the heart and the interior life, is to regard it with “reverence”, which depends on realizing its greatness and majesty.
This, however, is actually out of the scope of explanation and beyond the human capacity, because understanding the greatness of a thing depends on understanding its truth, while the truth of the Divine Holy Qur'an, before being sent down to the stages [manāzil] of creation and before undergoing practical modes [atwār], is of the affairs [shu'ūn] of His Essence and of the facts of Knowledge in His Unity [hadrat-i wāhidiyyat].
It is the truth of a “Self-Speech” [kalām-i nafs], which is the “Essential Argument” [muqāri'at-i dhātiyyah] in His Names. This truth appears to no one, neither
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by means of formal sciences or cordial knowledge nor by unseen disclosure, except through complete divine revelation to the blessed person of the Final Prophet (s) , in the intimacy of qāba qawsayn [at the distance of two bows' length], or even in the secret privacy of aw adnā [or nearer].
The hand of hope of the human species is short of that, except, that of the sincere of Allah's friends who, according to the spiritual lights and the divine facts, share in the spirituality of the Prophet's sacred essence and, through their complete subordination, they vanished in him. They receive the disclosing knowledge by inheriting it from him, and the truth of the Qur'an may be reflected in their hearts, with the same luminosity and perfection with which it appeared in the heart of that great personality, without its descending to [mundane] stations and taking [mundane] forms.
That Qur'an is without change and alteration, and it is of the book of divine revelation. The one capable of carrying this Qur'an is the noble person of the absolute friend of Allah, 'Alī ibn Abi Tālib ('a).
Others cannot take this fact in, unless it descends from the station of ghayb [the invisible] to the station of visibility and takes the seen form, wearing the apparel of mundane words and letters. This is one of the meanings of “changing” [tahrīf] or alteration which has occurred in all Divine Scriptures as well as the Qur'an, changing all the noble āyahs, which, with a
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change, or rather many changes, according to the stations and stages which continue from His “Names” to the last of the worlds of vision and visibility, are placed within the reach of man.
The number of the stages of the change corresponds to the number of the stages of the butūn of the Qur'an exactly. The meaning of the change [tahrīf] here is the descent from absolute ghayb to absolute visibility, in accordance with the degrees of the worlds, whereas the butūn is the return from absolute visibility to absolute ghayb. So, the beginning of the change, and the beginning of the butūn are opposed.
Whenever a sālik attains a stage of the butūn, he gets rid of a degree of the change. When he arrives at the absolute butūn, which is the seventh, according to the general classification, he absolutely gets rid of the change [tahrīf]. So, perhaps the Qur'an appears to some to be full of different changes. To another, it may appear with few changes, while to a third it appears with no change at all. It may also appear to somebody changed in some instances and unchanged in some others, or with some sorts of changes in a third instance.
As you know, understanding the greatness of the Qur'an is beyond the capacity of the intellect. Yet, a general hint at the greatness of this Divine Book, which is within the reach of everybody, is of many advantages.
Do know, dear, that the greatness of a
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speech or a book is derived from the greatness of the speaker and the writer, from the greatness of its contents and objectives, from the greatness of its results and fruits, from the greatness of its intermediate conveyer, from the greatness of its receiver and its carrier, from the greatness of its keeper and protector, from the greatness of its commentator and explainer or from the greatness of the time of its being sent down and how it was sent.
Some of these, however, are by nature the causes of greatness, others are indirectly so, and some are proofs of the greatness. All the said matters are contained in this luminous Book in their very best and satisfaction or, actually they are its distinguished characteristics. No other book shares them with it, or covers all of them comprehensively.
As regards the greatness of the speaker, the composer and its owner, He is the Absolute Great, for all kinds of greatness that can be imagined on the earth and in the heavens, and all powers descending in the visible and the invisible, are but seepage of the manifestations of the greatness of the act of His Sacred Essence.
Allah, the Exalted, would not show Himself to anybody through manifesting His Greatness from behind thousands of veils and curtains, as a hadīth says: “Allah has seventy-thousand veils [of light and darkness; if removed away, the lights of His Face would burn everything other than Him. ]. ” [1] To the people of knowledge, this noble
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Book has been issued from Allah, the Exalted, the Origin of all affairs of the Essence, Attributes and Acts, and of all manifestations of Beauty and Majesty. The other divine Books do not enjoy a similar status and position.
As regards the greatness of the contents, objectives and subjects, it requires a separate chapter, or, say, separate chapters, sections, a thesis or a book, so that one may relate only a part of that. We shall, nevertheless, generally refer, in a separate chapter, to its universal principles. In the said chapter we shall point out, inshā' Allāh, its greatness in respect of its results and outcome.
As regards the greatness of the messenger and the conveyer of its revelation, he is the Faithful Gabriel, the Great Spirit. After that the noble Messenger of Allah (s) had quitted the apparel of the nature of the flesh and directed the heart towards His Majesty, he got in touch with that Great Spirit.
He is one of the four pillars of the House of Realization; or rather he is the greatest of its pillars and the most honorable of them, since that noble and luminous Archangel is the guardian of knowledge and wisdom, and the conveyer of the spiritual provisions and moral nourishments. From the Book of Allah and the noble hadīths one realizes the greatness of Gabriel and his preference to other angels. [1]
As regards the greatness of its receiver and carrier, it is the pure and pious, Ahmadian single [ahmadi-yi ahadī],
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Muhammadan collective [jam'i-yi muhammadī] heart, to which Allah, the Exalted, appeared in all affairs [shu'ūn] of the Essence, Attributes, Names and Acts. He [the Prophet] is the Seal of prophethood and the absolute guardian, the most generous of all creation, the best of the human beings, the gist [khulāsah] of the universe, the essence [jawharah] of existence, the substance ['usārah] of the House of Realization, the last brick and the owner of the big isthmus and great vicegerency [khilāfat].
As regards the greatness of its keeper and guardian, He is the Sacred Essence of Allah, the Exalted as He says in the noble āyah:
“It is we who have sent down the Reminder [the Qur'an], and verily we are its keeper. ” [1]
As regards its commentators and explainers, they are the pure infallible ones beginning with the Messenger of Allah and ending with “the Proof of the Time” [hujjat-i 'asr], may Allah enhance his advent who are the keys of existence, the repositories of dignity, the sources of wisdom and inspiration, the origins of knowledge and learning, and the possessors of the state of collectivity [jam'] and distinctness [tafsīl].
As regards the time of revelation, it is Laylat al-Qadr [The Night of Majesty], which is the greatest of nights and “better than a thousand months”. It is the most luminous of times. In fact, it is the time of the attainment [wusūl] of the General Guardian [walī-yi mutlaq] and the Seal of the Prophets (s).
As regards how it was revealed and
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its relevant ceremonies, they are beyond the limits of the capacity of these few papers. They require a special chapter, which, owing to its elaboration, will have to be omitted.
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[1]: Bihār al-Anwār, vol. 55, p. 45. This hadīth is (also) related by the Sunnī sources.
[1]: See Sūrahs ash-Shu'arā' 26: 193, an-Najm 53: 5-9 and at-Takwīr 81: 19-24. See also Bihār al-Anwār, vol. 56, “Book of the Heaven and the World,” sec. on “The Angels” and “Another Chapter on Describing the Favorable Angels,” hadīths 23-24, p. 258.
[1]: Sūrah al-Hijr 15: 9
Section Five: Brief Hints At The Objectives, Subjects And Contents Of The Glorious Divine Book
Know that the Glorious (Divine) Book, as it declares itself, is a book of guidance, showing the way to human conduct, to educate the souls, to cure the spiritual sicknesses and to throw light on the road to Allah.
Generally speaking, Allah, due to His All-Embracing mercy upon His servants, sent this Glorious Book from His Sacred state of proximity, down, in proportion to the descending worlds until it reached this world of darkness and prison of nature and was put in the dress of words and letters in order to release those imprisoned in this world's dark dungeon and to unite those chained by the fetters of hopes and desires, lifting them from the lowest level of shortcomings, weakness and animality to the peak of perfection, strength and humanity, taking them away from Satan's neighborhood to the company of heavenly people, and to lead them to the state of “proximity” so as to let them attain the stage of meeting Allah, which is the highest objective and the want of the people of Allah.
So, this is the Book of inviting to Allah and happiness, and explaining how to attain that stage. Its contents, generally, concern this same journey to Allah, or help the sālik and traveler to Allah. In short, one of its important objectives is to
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invite [mankind] to know Allah, and [another is] to explain divine knowledge concerning the affairs of the Essence, Names, Attributes and Acts. At the top of this is the Unity of Essence, Names and Acts, some of which are explicitly mentioned and some others are only hinted at.
It should be noted that this comprehensive Divine Book deals with the above-mentioned information, from knowing the Essence to knowing the Acts, in such a way that each class of the people comprehends of it according to its capacity. The noble āyahs on tawhīd, and on the Unity of Acts in particular, are explained by the literalist scholars, the traditionalists and the faqīhs (may Allah be pleased with them) in such a way that their explanations are entirely contrary to the explanations of the people of knowledge and the scholars of the latent meaning of the Qur'an.
The writer believes that each of these explanations is correct in its own place, since the Qur'an cures the internal pains, and treats each patient in a certain way. See different noble āyahs, such as:
“He is the First and the Last, and the Manifest and the Hidden,” [1]
“Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth,” [2]
“And He it is who in the heaven and in the earth is God,” [3]
“And He is with you,” [4]
“Wherever you turn there is Allah's Face,” [5]
And many others on the Unity of Essence, and the last āyahs of the Sūrah of al-Hashr and other ones on the Unity
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of Attributes, and the āyahs:
“And you threw not when you did throw, but Allah threw,” [1]
“All praise is for Allah, the Lord of the worlds,” [2]
And
“All that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth glorify Allah,” [3]
Concerning the Unity of acts some of them strictly, and some others more strictly, have gnostic indications. For each class of the external and the internal scholars each of them is the remedy, in a way, for an illness. As, although it is said in the noble al-Kāfī that the first āyahs of Sūrah al-Hadīd and the blessed Sūrah of Ikhlās [Tawhīd] were intended for the deep thinkers of the End of the Time,” [4] yet the people of literalism are also benefited by them all right a fact which proves the miraculousness and the comprehensiveness of this noble Book.
Of its other objectives and topics is its call for purifying the souls and purging the insides from the impurities of nature, and attaining happiness. Generally, it shows how to travel to Allah. This noble subject is divided into two important branches: One is taqwā in all its stages, including bewaring of other than Allah, and complete negligence of all other than Him. The other is faith in all its stages and affairs, including devotion to Allah, and return and repentance to His Sacred Essence. These are of the important objectives of this noble Book as most of its subjects, directly or indirectly, connote them.
Another subject of this Divine
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Book is to relate the stories of the prophets, Allah's friends and the wise men, and how He educated them, and how they educated the people. These stories are of great advantages and cover many instructions. They include so many pieces of divine information, teachings and divine educational instructions, either openly or allegorically that perplex the mind. Glorious is Allah and praise and gratitude are for Him.
Just take the story of the creation of Adam ('a) , the angels' being ordered to bow down to him, the teaching of the names and the cases of Iblīs and Adam ('a) which are repeatedly narrated in the Book of Allah. They offer so many teachings, educational instructions, knowledge and information for
“Him who has a heart or lends ear and he is a witness” [1]
That bewilders man. The stories of the Qur'an, such as the stories of Adam, Moses, Abraham and other prophets ('a) are repeatedly stated in order to show that this Book is neither a book of stories nor of history, but a book of journeying to Allah, a book of tawhīd, knowledge, admonitions and aphorisms.
In such matters repetition is required so as to fix them in the hard-hearted souls and to have effects as an admonition to them. In other words, whoever wants to educate, teach, warn and bring good tidings, has to express his intentions in different styles and diverse ways, such as narrations and tales, or historical stories, and sometimes in quite an explicit way, and
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sometimes by way of allusion and indirect hints, symbols and examples, so that different souls and scattered hearts can each be benefited by them.
As this noble Book is intended for the happiness of all classes and the human race, and as the human species differ in the condition of their hearts, in their customs, behaviors, time and place, they cannot be attracted in the same way. Many of them may not be prepared to accept the instructions and the original matter in a direct, clear and explicit language, or to be affected by it.
They are to be approached in accordance with the construction of their brains in order to make them comprehend what is intended. Some others are not interested in stories, tales and histories, as they are in quest of the cores of the matters and the real aims. They cannot be taken on the same basis with the former ones.
Many hearts are fit for being frightened and warned; other hearts are attracted by promises and hopes. Consequently, this noble Book uses different methods, styles and ways for its invitation of the people. Thus, such Book has inevitably to resort to repetition. Attracting and admonishing, without repetition, would be far from eloquence. The expected effect in the souls cannot be obtained without repetition.
Nevertheless, in this noble Book, the topics are so sweetly related that their repetition never bores the hearers. Furthermore, each repetition of a subject brings fresh details and features that have not
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formerly been mentioned, or rather in each repetition there is an additional important gnostic or ethical point around which the case revolves. In order to expand upon this, one has to carefully study the stories of the Qur'an, which cannot be contained within the summaries of these papers.
This weak person [the writer] has a fixed hope to write, with Allah's help, a book about the stories of the Qur'an, deciphering their puzzles and explaining their teachings and educational qualities, as much as possible, though carrying out this task by somebody like the writer is but a raw desire, or a false fancy.
At any rate, relating the stories of the prophets ('a) , describing their conducts and behaviors, how they educated the people, and remembering their advices, admonitions and good arguments are of the largest chapters of knowledge and philosophies, and of the loftiest passages to happiness and instructions which Allah, the Exalted and Most Glorified, opened to His servants.
Although the people of knowledge, sulūk and austerity have their share plentifully, other people also have their boundless portion, as is stated in the noble āyah:
“When the night over-shadowed him, he saw a star. He said: “This is my Lord. ” But when it set, he said: “I do not love the setting (ones). ” [1]
The people of knowledge understand well the spiritual sulūk and the conduct of Abraham ('a). They also learn how to travel to Allah, and perceive the truth of the self's spiritual journey from the farthest (deepest) darkness of
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nature, expressed in “the night over-shadowed him,” till absolutely casting down the egoism and egotism, leaving Oneness and self-worship, attaining the state of sanctity and joining the meeting of intimacy, which is expressed in: “I have turned my face toward Him who created the heavens and the earth…” [1]
Others learn from it the outer journey and how Khalīl ar-Rahmān (the intimate friend of the Beneficent) educated his people. Likewise, there are other stories and tales, such as the stories of Adam, Ibrāhīm (Abraham) , Moses, Yūsuf (Joseph) , 'Īsā (Jesus) and the meeting between al-Khidr (Elias) and Moses, by which the people of knowledge, austerity and hardship, and others are benefited differently.
In this part included, or in a separate objective, are the aphorisms and the admonitions of His Sacred Essence, Who, on every suitable occasion, has invited the people, with His tongue of Power, to divine knowledge, tawhīd and glorification, such as the blessed Sūrah of Ikhlās, the last āyahs of the Sūrah of al-Hashr and the early āyahs of the Sūrah of al-Hadīd and other instances in the noble divine Book.
The people of heart and of good past enjoy a good share of it. For example, when the people of knowledge recite:
“And whoever leaves his house migrating to Allah and His Messenger, then death overtakes him, his reward is, indeed, with Allah…” [2]
They understand from it the proximity of the nāfilah [supererogatory act] and farīdah [obligatory act], while, at the same time, others understand from it a bodily
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migration, say, to Mecca or to Medina, or they understand it to be an invitation to purifying the soul and internal austerity, as in the noble āyah:
“He will, indeed, be successful who purifies it, and he will, indeed, be unsuccessful who seduces it,” [1]
And the like; or it is a call to good deed, as it is obvious; or it is a warning against anyone of these things. This part also includes the aphorisms of Luqmān and of other notables and believers that are sporadically mentioned in this divine Book, such as the case of the “Companions of the Cave. ”
Another subject of this luminous Book concerns the states of the disbelievers, the deniers and the opposers of the truth and reality, and those who act obstinately towards the prophets and the Imāms ('a). It explains their fates and how they were annihilated, such as the episodes of Pharaoh, Korah, Nimrod, Shaddād, the Companions of the Elephant, and other disbelievers and sinners, in all of which there are admonitions, aphorisms and even knowledge for those who deserve them.
This part includes the cases of the accursed Iblīs, as well as the expeditions of the Messenger of Allah (s) , (or in a separate part) from which noble subjects are also learnt, such as how the Companions of the Messenger of Allah (s) used to fight in order to awaken the Muslims from the sleep of negligence, and to incite them to fight for the sake of Allah to uplift
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the word of truth and to abolish the bātil (falsehood).
Another subject dealt with in the Glorious Qur'an is explaining the pure laws of the literal meaning of the sharī'ah and the disciplines and divine rules, which are stated in this luminous Book, in a general way, the most important of which is introducing the principal subjects and disciplines, such as the chapters of the salāt, - Page282 - Adab as-Salat The Disciplines of the Prayer Second Revised Edition
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[1]: Sūrah al-Hadīd 57: 3
[2]: Sūrah an-Nūr 24: 35
[3]: Sūrah az-Zukhruf 43: 84
[4]: Sūrah al-Hadīd 57: 4
[5]: Sūrah al-Baqarah 2: 115
[1]: Sūrah al-Anfal 8: 17
[2]: Sūrah al-Fātihah 1: 2
[3]: Sūrah al-Jumu'ah 62: 1; Sūrah at-Taghābun 64: 1
[4]: Usūl al-Kāfī, vol. 1, “Book of at-Tawhīd,” ch. on “Lineage,” hadīth 3, p. 123.
[1]: Sūrah Qāf 50: 37
[1]: Sūrah al-An'ām 6: 76
[1]: Ibid.: 79
[2]: Sūrah an-Nisā' 4: 100
[1]: Sūrah ash-Shams 91: 9-10
zakāt, khums, hajj, sawm, jihād, marriage, inheritance, penalties, punishments, trading, and the like.
This section, which is the science of the appearance of the sharī'ah, is a public concern and is for all the classes, and it is intended to build up this world and the Hereafter. All the classes of people can benefit from it according to their individual capacities. This is frequently invited to in the Book of Allah, as well as in the hadīths and narratives, which freely expand upon the characteristics and details. The works and writings of the religious scholars on this section are more and higher than on other sections.
Another topic dealt with in the Glorious Qur'an is the conditions of the ma'ād [Resurrection], arguments proving it, its torments, punishments and rewards, and the details of Paradise, Hell, punishing, and of putting in a state of comfort and ease.
This section handles matters such as the conditions of the people of happiness and their ranks, like the people of knowledge, the favorites, the people of austerity, the travelers to Allah, the devotees, and
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the ascetics, as well as the conditions and degrees of the people of wretchedness, such as the infidels, the veiled, the hypocrites, the deniers, the disobedient and the sinners. But that which has more advantages to the conditions of the common people is more expanded upon and is in a more explicit language, whereas that which is more advantageous to a particular class of people is referred to by way of allegories and allusions, such as:
“And an approval from Allah is far greater” [1] ,
And other āyahs about meeting Allah, and such as:
“Nay, surely they shall on that day be veiled from their Lord,” [2]
In respect to another group. In this section, i. e. the section concerning details about the Resurrection and the Return to Allah, countless information and difficult secrets are stated, such that, without a demonstrative conduct [sulūk] or a gnostic light, their nature cannot be comprehended.
Another subject of this divine Book is the proofs and evidences which Allah, the Exalted, Himself presents to prove the truthful matters and divine knowledge, like the argument proving [the existence of] Allah and His Oneness, His transcendence, His Knowledge, His Power and His other attributes of perfection.
In this section one can sometimes find very refined proofs from which the people of knowledge derive complete benefit, such as:
“Allah bears witness that there is no god but He. ” [3]
One also finds proofs which are used by the scholars and philosophers in one way, and by the people of formalism and
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the common people in another way, such as the āyah:
“Had there been in them any gods other than Allah, they both would have been corrupted,” [1]
And the āyah:
“…otherwise each god would have certainly taken away what he had created,” [2]
And like the first āyahs of the Sūrah of al-Hadīd and the blessed Sūrah of at-Tawhīd and other āyahs. Also there are arguments proving the Resurrection and the return of the spirits and originating another creation, and the arguments proving the existence of Allah's angels and the great prophets, stated in many occasions in this Glorious Book.
These were the arguments of the Sacred Essence Himself, and there are the arguments and proofs of the prophets and wise men quoted by Allah to prove the divine knowledge, such as the arguments of Ibrāhīm, the intimate Friend of Allah ('a) , and other arguments.
These were the important subjects of this Book, though there are many other different subjects, which require considerable time to count.
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[1]: Sūrah at-Tawbah 9: 72
[2]: Sūrah al-Mutaffifīn 83: 15
[3]: Sūrah al-Mutaffifīn 83: 15
[1]: Sūrah al-Anbiyā' 21: 22.
[2]: Sūrah al-Mu'minūn 23: 91