Kinds of spiritual knowledge (ma'arif)

Since the Shari'ah was laid down in opposition to the commanding self (nafs ammara), and man's great test is whether he acts upon the wishes of Allah Most High and His Messenger ﷺ or upon his own desires, acting upon the Shari'ah weighs immensely heavily on the self. Among the characteristics of the commanding self is that it wants freedom and does not like servitude to anyone or any restraint.

Secondly, it is always eager for loftiness and superiority, and at all times it desires to be the ruler. From this arise countless evils and quarrels. Secondly, the heart (qalb), which is luminous by nature and belongs to the World of Command (alam-e-amr), becomes defiled by a number of things. We have described in detail in other writings the causes of the heart's turbidity and the self's mischief. Thirdly, the four elements are also part of man's creation, and their own effects and properties are such as to cause distance from the court of light.

In short, the noble Sufis (may Allah be pleased with them) carried out systematic inquiry and, through various means of knowledge and perception, reached the conclusion that the causes that distance one from the divine court are the following:

(a) the vices of the self; (b) the heedlessness of the subtle centres of the World of Command (lata'if-e-amr); (c) the nature of the elements. The elements, the self, the heart, together with the spirit (ruh), the secret (sirr), the hidden (khafi) and the most hidden (akhfa), all need refinement and purification; by this alone can one reach Allah, and by this acting upon the Shari'ah can become easy. For this reason they laid down the principles and rules for refining the heart and purifying the self. This practice of theirs was based on profound wisdom, and it was precisely this that enabled them to attain the qualities and perfections, morals and habits you have read about in the preceding pages. Through it their hearts became clean and clear like a mirror, and those sciences and gnosis were unveiled to them, and they became acquainted with those realities, which cannot be known through reasoning and inference, teaching and learning and the like.

To make acting upon the Shari'ah easy, the noble Sufis established khanqahs on a regular footing and

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Fire, water, earth, air.

made the pledge of allegiance (bay'ah) and spiritual guidance (irshad) widespread. Keeping people in the khanqahs, they taught them the beliefs and rulings of the Shari'ah, acquainted them with the inward sciences, gave them practical training, adorned them with the loftiest etiquettes, and appointed them to guide the community. In this way they did various kinds of work in various fields, and Sufism became a systematically compiled science. The Sufism that is before us today can be divided into a few parts as follows:

Some Branches of the Science of Sufism

1. The lexical and technical meanings and senses of tasawwuf and the relation between them; the reasons for the various definitions; its origin and source, its growth and development; the root of Sufism.

2. The applications of the word Sufi; the types and classes of Sufis; the conditions and obligations of a true Sufi; why the Sufi is so named; the views, beliefs, characteristics and virtues of the Sufis, and so on.

3. The noble Sufis and following the Quran and Sunnah.

4. The noble Sufis: (their understanding of the Quran and Sunnah, the sciences they derived from the Quran and Sunnah, and Sufi explanations.

5. The etiquettes of the Sufis. These are of many kinds, for example: etiquettes toward the divine court, etiquettes of being a master (mashikhat), etiquettes of purification (wudu and ghusl), etiquettes of prayer, of fasting, of Hajj, of Zakat and charity, of recitation, of eating and drinking, of dress, of wearing the Sufi cloak (khirqa), of travelling and staying at home, of love, of hospitality, of ecstasy and audition (wajd o sama'), of scholarly discussions, of earning a livelihood, of solitude and company, of going hungry, of departing from the world, of companionship, the etiquettes of the Sufis in illness, the Sufis' etiquettes of marriage, and so on.

6. States and stations: repentance and turning back to Allah (tawbah o inabat), repentance, contentment (qana'at), fear and hope, patience and gratitude, love and contentment with Allah's decree (hubb o rida), annihilation and subsistence (fana o baqa) and their kinds and varieties, contraction and expansion (qabd o bast), awe (haybat), intimacy (uns), striving for ecstasy (tawajud) and ecstasy (wajd), finding (wujud), union (jam'),

separation (tafriqa), union of union (jam' al-jam'), absence and presence (ghaybat o huzur), sobriety and intoxication (sahw o sukr), tasting (dhawq), affirmation (ithbat), the secret (sirr), divine manifestation (tajalli), presence (muhadara), unveiling (mukashafa), witnessing (mushahada), glimmers (lawa'ih), risings (tawali'), flashes (lawami'), sudden onsets (bawadir), overwhelming onrush (hujum), variegation (talwin), stability (tamkin), nearness and distance (qurb o bu'd), and so on.

7. The details and descriptions, kinds and varieties of the stations and stages they passed through and the states and inward experiences (waridat) they encountered.

8. Spiritual wayfaring (sayr o suluk) with its kinds and stations, and divine attraction (jadhba) with its kinds, and the states of the wayfarers (salikin). All these and what relates to them can be seen in detail in Kitab al-Luma', Qut al-Qulub, Awarif al-Ma'arif, Kashf al-Mahjub, the Risala of al-Qushayri, Kitab al-Taqarrub, Nafahat al-Uns, the noble Futuh al-Ghayb and others. Besides these, there is a great store of other realities and gnosis, of which a somewhat detailed account is as follows:

Realities

9. The realities of the Divine Essence and of the divine attributes, names and acts of Allah, Majestic and Exalted.

10. The realities and gnosis concerning the Prophet ﷺ, master of the Messengers.

11. The realities of the Prophets and Messengers (blessings and peace be upon them).

12. The realities of the noble Companions and the great saints, and other realities of contingent beings of this world and the Hereafter, and so on.

13. Divine nearness (qurb-e-ilahi) and its kinds, means, obstacles and so on.

14. The realities of the holy places: Madinah the Pure, Makkah the Honoured, Bayt al-Maqdis and others.

15. Sainthood (wilayat) and prophethood (nubuwwat) and their kinds; the sainthood of the Prophets (peace be upon them), the sainthood of the Highest Assembly (al-mala' al-a'la) and the sainthood of the saints; also the special characteristics of sainthood and of prophethood, and so on.

16. Original (asliyya) and shadow (zilliyya) perfections and their further kinds.

17. Divine manifestations (tajalliyat) and appearances (zuhurat) and their kinds: manifestations of the Essence, of the Attributes and of the Acts; manifestation on the Throne (zuhur-e-arshi), in the heart (zuhur-e-qalbi), and so on.

The realities of the Prophets (peace be upon them), and the reasons for, details of, differences in and ranks of these realities, and so on.

19. The noble saints and their kinds: saints who live among people (awliya-e-ishrat) and saints of seclusion (awliya-e-uzlat); also the axes (aqtab) and their kinds, the Help (ghawth), the Pegs (awtad), the Substitutes (abdal), the Chosen (akhyar), the Nobles (nujaba), the Chiefs (nuqaba), and so on.

20. The various Sufi orders (silsilas), their special characteristics and requirements, their practices (ashghal) and litanies (awrad), their forms of remembrance (adhkar), and their stages and phases, and so on.

21. The unveiling of the saints and its kinds; details and explanations of divine and cosmic unveilings.

22. The constituent parts of man: the subtle centres (lata'if) and other faculties and senses, their realities, the special characteristics and requirements of each, and the divine manifestations and lights that descend upon each.

23. The spiritual guide (murshid) and master (shaykh) and their kinds, the details of each and their special characteristics, and so on.

24. Spiritual grace (fayd) and its various kinds.

25. The reasons and causes of difference in the gnosis and realities of the noble saints.

26. Faith and its kinds: by unveiling, by inference, and by imitation (taqlid); also faith in the unseen and so on; and the difference in faith according to the ranks of individuals.

27. The realities and gnosis of Islam and faith and of acts of worship such as prayer, fasting, Hajj and so on.

For all of these, the study of the following is immensely beneficial: the blessed books of Hazrat Shaykh Ibn al-Arabi (may his secret be sanctified), especially al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya and Fusus al-Hikam; Bahr al-Ma'ani by Shaykh Sayyid Anbar Husayni Sirhindi (may his secret be sanctified); all three volumes of the Letters (Maktubat) of Hazrat Imam Rabbani Mujaddid Alf-e-Sani (may his secret be sanctified); the letters of his illustrious sons Hazrat Khwaja Muhammad Sa'id and Hazrat Khwaja Muhammad Ma'sum, and of Hazrat Khwaja Ma'sum's illustrious son Khwaja Sayf al-Din; and the letters of the other descendants of Mujaddid Alf-e-Sani;

the letters and treatises of Hazrat Mirza Mazhar Jan-e-Janan, the martyr of Delhi, and of his successor and deputy (khalifa) Hazrat Sayyiduna Shah Ghulam Ali Dehlawi; the books and treatises of Hazrat Qazi Thanaullah Panipati; and some treatises of Hazrat Shah Waliullah and his sons, especially Hazrat Siraj al-Hind Shah Abdul Aziz, and so on (may Allah Most High sanctify their lofty secrets). Besides these, realities lie scattered like pearls in many books of the Sufis and in the books and treatises of the noble saints (may Allah be pleased with them); if they were all gathered together, a great store of gnosis and realities would be at hand. Moreover, many realities also lie hidden in the biographies of the saints, in the form of their recorded sayings (malfuzat).

Differences in Gnosis

Those who have studied the gnosis and realities of the noble Sufis (may Allah be pleased with them) in depth know well that there are considerable differences among them. In the view of this faqir (may he be pardoned), there are several causes for this:

1. The ways and paths of reaching Allah are different, and each path has certain special characteristics of its own. The stages and phases of each are distinct and their sights are different; whoever saw whatever on whichever path described it.

2. Nearness is of two kinds: (a) the nearness of prophethood and (b) the nearness of sainthood. The perfections of the two are distinct, their orientations are different, and the gnosis related to them is different. After the successors of the Successors (Tab' Tabi'in), it was generally the perfections of sainthood that became manifest. During this period, whatever perfections and gnosis appeared from the masters of unveiling related to sainthood, until Hazrat Mujaddid Alf-e-Sani Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi (may his secret be sanctified) became the renewer (mujaddid) of the second millennium, and the perfections of prophethood, messengership and so on became manifest once again. Besides this, many other fresh realities came

to light; therefore there is a great difference between the gnosis and realities of Hazrat Mujaddid and those of the other noble Sufis (may Allah be pleased with them), and the gnosis of Hazrat Mujaddid (may his secret be sanctified) is the closest of all to the Book and Sunnah.

3. The Prophet ﷺ, master of the Messengers, combined all the divine perfections. In particular individuals of his Ummah, different perfections became manifest in different eras: in some, perfections related to the heart; in some, to the spirit; in some, to the secret; and so on. For this reason too, differences arose in gnosis.

4. The ranks of the noble saints and great Sufis (may Allah Most High sanctify their lofty secrets) differ. Some reached as far as the shadows of the Names and Attributes, some as far as the Names and Attributes themselves, some higher still. Wherever each one was, he described the states, conditions, perfections and gnosis of that place. Then afterwards, when his reach extended higher and he progressed, he became acquainted with new perfections and described the perfections of that level. That is why here and there differences occur even within the gnosis of a single saint. Just as the findings of verifying scholars and imams undergo change, so too in the unveilings of these verifying Sufis there is change owing to the change of stages and phases. Secondly, it also happens with them that sometimes they perceive something in summary and later come to know it in detail, and they describe the gnosis of both.

5. The Quran and Sunnah, the other pure phrases, the various glorifications (tasbihat), praises (tahmidat) and magnifications (takbirat), and the inspired forms of remembrance and practices of the noble masters and so on, have different lights, states and manifestations; likewise their struggles and austerities and their acts of worship and obedience also have distinct properties, states and lights, and through them different stations are unveiled. Each one described them according to his own

perception and understanding.

Let it also be kept in view that some masters described certain matters in somewhat greater detail according to their own perception, yet related gnosis still remained, which was unveiled later; Hazrat Mujaddid (may his secret be sanctified) himself has stated as much regarding the Unity of Being (wahdat al-wujud). Let it also be kept in mind that sobriety (sahw) prevails over some masters and intoxication (sukr) over others, and the colour of the gnosis of intoxication differs from that of the gnosis of sobriety. In this universe, this world of colour and scent, there are countless wonders of divine power, and diverse kinds of splendour lie veiled and hidden: one is manifested to one person, another to another; and even at a single station, the same thing is manifested to different persons with different characteristics and breadths. Generally, these are the causes of the difference in gnosis mentioned above. People of little knowledge imagine a contradiction in the differing gnosis, whereas this is not so. Moreover, the affiliations (nisbat) and special relationships with Allah, Majestic and Exalted, that the noble Sufis (may Allah Most High have mercy on them) attain have different states and requirements; Hazrat Shah Waliullah Muhaddith Dehlawi (may his secret be sanctified) has described these affiliations and their requirements in great detail in his book Hama'at.

Afaque Ahmad Mujaddidi

17 Muharram al-Haram 1437 AH, 31 October 2015 CE

On the blessed day of Saturday