The Book of Tawhid

THE BOOK
OF
TAWHID
Nine Discourses
given between March 27th
and May 29th 2004
at Al-Jami'a Mosque,
Claremont, Cape Town
SHAYKH DR. ‘ABDALQADIR AS-SUFI

CONTENTS
PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33
III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53
IV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73
V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101
VI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .115
VII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .129
VIII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .147
IX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .163
Text of Qur'an: taken from
the Algerian State Edition of Imam Warsh.
English meanings: from the Emirates-approved

text of the Hajjis Abdalhaqq and Aisha Bewley.
PREFACE
Due to the interregnum, soon, inshallah, to be brought

to an end, which marks the period from which Islamic
governance was interrupted, that is to say in the Mughal
and Osmanli Dawlets, we, the Muslim World Commun-
ity, experience Islam without its utterly necessary dimen-
sion of political command. One oddly regrettable result
of this has been that we have started to take our Imams
as leaders, making them into a priesthood, and allowing
them to rule us like a slave population, which, having no
power over either war or wealth, allow themselves to be
commanded in the private matters of births, marriages
and deaths. In this sense our Muslim population have
taken on the form of a totally different religion, Shi‘ism.
The proof of this is that we have allowed the kuffar to
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The Book of Tawhid
define us as belonging to “Sunni Islam”, as if accepting

their definition that the Islamic religion has historically
been split into two sects. There can only be one Deen al-
Haqq, and it has Divine authorisation to be called Islam.
Allah the Exalted says in Surat al-Ma’ida (5:3):
Today the kuffar have despaired of overcoming your deen.

So do not be afraid of them but be afraid of Me.
Today I have perfected your deen for you
and completed My blessing upon you
and I am pleased with Islam as a deen for you.
Another result of this is, that in treating the Imam as an

Authority, rather than that utterly replaceable figure
whose noble task is to lead the Salat, the members of the
Jama’at have lost that dynamic relationship with the text
of the Qur’an on which a vibrant Islamic community
has to be founded. In our books of Seerat and Hadith we
find that the Sahaba used to gather after Fajr, and those
among them who knew some Qur’an would recite it,
after which they would reflect in order to see how they
could apply its guidance to the day’s affairs.
It was in that spirit that we decided to hold a series of

gatherings in order to give a start to this dynamic rela-
tionship between the Jama’at and the Book of Allah. In
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Preface
reviving this Madinan ‘Amal, it was only fitting that we

should begin the matter by extracting from the Qur’an
itself the clear explications of Allah, glory be to Him,
about Himself, that is, the knowledge of Tawhid.
So it was that in these nine gatherings, each one of the

Fuqara, men and women, sat with the Qur’an in front of
them, and at every reference to the Qur’an in the text
which follows, the Jama’at would themselves look up the
Ayats, and they would also be recited by our Hafidh. As
a result, by the end of the study series the group felt at
home with handling the Qur’an, looking it up, and
finding the Surat and the Ayat. One could say that the
Jama’at, in this small event, had recovered for themselves
the Clear Book which had, after all, been sent down
from Allah, glory be to Him, for them, and not just some
priestly class who used it to assure them a living, to take
it out in the rituals of birth, marriage and death, and
even, astaghfirullah, hold it over the householder’s head
when he left the house on a journey!
One could add a further result to this matter. It is pre-

cisely this Jama’at that has most fully grasped that the
paid Imams (a Makruh situation in the Shari’at) have
neither taught, nor called for, nor activated the need for
a community to be governed by an Amir, and that the
Amir, in turn, must impose with his Zakat Collectors
that collected Zakat without which there simply is no
Islam at all.
Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi
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I
MARCH 27 TH 2004
We will Look at Surat al-Ahzab (33:34-35).
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The Book of Tawhid
And remember the Signs of Allah

and the wise words
which are recited in your rooms.
Allah is All-Pervading, All-Aware.
Men and women who are Muslims,

men and women who are muminun,
men and women who are obedient,
men and women who are truthful,
men and women who are steadfast,
men and women who are humble,
men and women who give sadaqa,
men and women who fast,
men and women who guard their private parts,
men and women who remember Allah much:
Allah has prepared forgiveness for them
and an immense reward.
Regarding “Men and women who remember Allah

much,” the Arabic term used there is “Dhikr.” It is “Men
and women who do dhikr of Allah,” men and women
who do the act of remembering.
Men and women who remember Allah much:

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Here we have the statement that is the defining ayat of

the fuqara and the faqirat, this ayat defines them.

and the wise words
So Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, mentions the worship that

you do – not in the mosque – but the worship that you
do privately, and He begins in this ayat from that. This
already distinguishes these muminun and muminat who
have a special place with Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala.

and the wise words
“Buyut” here has been translated as “rooms”, and that is

interesting because if you go to Surat an-Nur (24:36):
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The Book of Tawhid
The translation is: “In houses which Allah has permitted to

be built,” but it is not so much ‘houses’ – you could almost
say zawiyyas. It is the place where people have set them-
selves apart to do dhikr of Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala.
Now Allah specifies the spiritual, ruhani qualities of

these special people in the next ayat:
Men and women who are Muslims,

men and women who are muminun,
men and women who are obedient,
men and women who are truthful,
men and women who are steadfast,
men and women who are humble,
men and women who give sadaqa,
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men and women who fast,

men and women who guard their private parts,
men and women who remember Allah much:
So Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, has meant that for these

people, there is something prepared for them. They have
a reward. This group of people have the reward with
Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala. They have forgiveness and a
vast reward. What would be the vast reward after for-
giveness? For the common people it would be like the
bill being paid. But there is more than that, there is a vast
reward. With Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, there is only
one thing that would be fitting for the people He has
defined and that would be Ma‘rifa. The reward of Allah,
subhanahu wa ta’ala, is Ma‘rifa.
The Arabic word for reward is ‘ajra’. This word comes

again and again in the Qur’an, and it is to do with this
contract Allah has made with the special muminun, the
ones who are picked out, the ones who are elevated, and
this is the vast reward.
Now we look at Surat al-‘Ankabut (29:45):
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The Book of Tawhid
Recite what has been revealed to you of the Book

and establish Salat.
Salat precludes indecency and wrongdoing.
And remembrance of Allah is greater still.
Allah knows what you do.
Recite what has been revealed to you of the Book

and establish Salat.
So the first order is the recitation of Qur’an. Allah, sub-

hanahu wa ta’ala, puts the two together because the Salat
implies the recitation of Qur’an, thus it is really one
thing. This, again, is the command to Salat which has
built into it the recitation of the Book. There are three
stages, and this is the first stage. The next stage is:
Salat precludes indecency and wrongdoing.
Having established that, Allah then puts another level on

to constructing the complete human being. The next
level is, “Salat precludes indecency and wrongdoing,” so
the moral behaviour cannot be imposed on him if you
have not already established the recitation of Qur’an,
and the Salat. Then you can impose on man the correct
moral behaviour. It is as if the kuffar, who are nowadays
attacking Islam, were saying that we are harsh with
people, and in fact you could say that people in Arabia
are harsh with their own people because they have not
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established the recitation of Qur’an which leads to the

understanding of its meaning, and the Salat – so then
they can ask of their people to have a moral behaviour
and if they do not, with that situation the Shari‘ah is
there to put the limits on human behaviour. Human be-
haviour has to be limited, otherwise man will go to the
extremes of destruction.
And remembrance of Allah is greater still.
So the highest aspect of this is that you are now another

type of human being. You are people who make Salat,
who worship Allah with the knowledge of the words of
Qur’an, and therefore you have taken on this correct be-
haviour – but greater is the dhikr of Allah. So that which
gives you access to Ma‘rifatullah is the highest aspect of
the human being. Then we come to the inescapable real-
ity of the Muslim situation:
Allah knows what you do.
The dynamic of this superior being, the Muslim – that is

superior to the kuffar – is that he knows that Allah
knows what he does. This is another kind of being. The
Wird as-Sahl, of the great Sufi of the East, Sahl at-
Tustari was from Qur’an:
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The Book of Tawhid
Allah is with me, Allah sees me,

Allah is the Witness of my acts.
This is what made him have direct experience, ‘Ilm al-

laduni, of Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala.
Now we go to Surat al-Baqara (2:152):
Remember Me – I will remember you.

Give thanks to Me and do not be ungrateful.
This ayat is an ayat ‘adhim because this is a very high

thing that Allah is telling the muminun. Look at the
construction:
Remember Me,
I will remember you.
It has exactly the same construct but is like a mirror

image of it. It is like saying “If we remember Him, He
remembers us” – and the Sufis say, “Who is the remem-
berer?” Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, says, “Remember Me
and I remember you.” So the lover becomes the beloved.
Who is the lover and who is the beloved? This is the
secret, this is the very heart of what can be spoken,
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because beyond that you cannot say. But Allah, subhana-

hu wa ta’ala, has openly said in the Qur’an that the lover
is the beloved and the beloved is the lover. “Remember
Me – I will remember You.” Love Me and I will love you.
Let us look now at Surat al-Muzzammil (73:8-9):
Remember the Name of your Lord,

and devote yourself to Him completely.
Lord of the East and West –
there is no god but Him –
so take Him as your Guardian.
This is the command. This is what runs through the

Qur’an. Remember that the Qur’an is full of very feroc-
ious things, terrible things – it is full of these warnings
to the kuffar about the Fire, about the destruction of cit-
ies, about the punishment of Allah, about how He will
not allow these deviations of the human beings and how
in every age He has smashed them. But then underneath
this running all the time is this message to the
muminun: “Allah has prepared forgiveness for them and
an immense reward.” This is what you have to do. This
is your business. “Remember the Name of your Lord.”
Dhikr is the order on these ones who are the elite, and
the elite of the elite is to be people who live in dhikr.
They are created for dhikr because Allah, subhanahu wa
ta’ala, says in Surat adh-Dhariyat (51:56):
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The Book of Tawhid
I only created jinn and man to worship Me.
This is the order from Allah. This is what you are created
for, and is what only these special people have understood.
Remember the Name of your Lord,

and devote yourself to Him completely.
Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, says: “Devote yourself to

Him completely,” which means you do nothing else! The
people who did not have the Sirat al-Mustaqim would
think therefore that they had to go up into a mountain
and stand on one leg, and that they had to shut themselves
off from the world in order to do this thing. But Allah,
subhanahu wa ta’ala, explains in Surat al-‘Imran (3:191):
…those who remember Allah, standing,

sitting and lying on their sides.
This means that in every situation you remember Allah.

Also Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, says in Surat an-Nur
(24:37):
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…not distracted by trade or commerce

from the remembrance of Allah.
So trading, doing business, does not distract you from

the remembrance of Allah. So this order: “Devote your-
self to Him completely,” means that you live in the Pre-
sence of Allah, the Hadrat ar-Rabbani in every situation.
If you look at the Diwan of Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-

Habib, radiyallahu ‘anhu, he says that the thing which
stands in your way is your nafs. If you remember your-
self, you are forgetting Allah. Surat al-‘Asr (103):
In the name of Allah, All-Merciful, Most Merciful

By the Late Afternoon, truly man is in loss –
except for those who have Iman and do right actions
and urge each other to the truth
and urge each other to steadfastness.
So man is in forgetfulness and what he is forgetful of is

the reality of his own existence. He owes his existence to
Allah. His existence is evidence of Allah, and he forgets!
And Allah says: “When you forget, remember.”
Now we look at part of Ayat 165 in Surat al-Baqara:
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The Book of Tawhid
But those who have Iman have greater love for Allah.
So Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, is placing a certain group

of the humans higher because they have greater love of
Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala. This is a qualitative differ-
ence. All men are not equal. With Allah they are not the
same. There is no equality, because there is a portion of
the human race who are the muminun, who are pleasing
to Allah, and who have a greater love for Allah, and this
places them higher.
Look now at Surat al-‘Imran (3:31):
Say, “If you love Allah, then follow me

and Allah will love you and forgive you
for your wrong actions.
Allah is Ever-Forgiving, Most Merciful.”
Now is revealed the whole process by which this hap-

pens, because it begins with this vital word in Qur’an
which is ‘Qul’. This means that it is a command from
Allah from the angel to Rasul.
Now we get the whole story: “Say, ‘If you love Allah,
then follow me.’” So Rasul is ordering the people, “If you
love Allah, then follow me.” You cannot love Allah and
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not follow Rasul. This means we have no dialogue with

other religions. There is nothing to say to other religions.
If you love Allah then you have to follow Rasul – finish-
ed! That is the end of our dialogue – go back, go away!
If you really love Allah then you will follow Rasul, sallal-
lahu ‘alayhi wa sallam.
This is an order from Allah where He says: “Say!” Sallal-

lahu ‘alayhi wa sallam is not saying it from himself, he is
saying it under the Divine imperative.
Say, ‘If you love Allah, then follow me

and Allah will love you and forgive you
for your wrong actions.
Allah is Ever-Forgiving, Most Merciful.’
The Prophet’s order is to tell the people that if they love

Allah, they have to follow the Rasul. Then Allah will love
them, which means, again, in this contract which we
have taken, that if Allah loves the mumin then the lover
becomes the beloved. Then the door is open to Ma‘rifat-
ullah. Once the sentence is read, that is Ma‘rifa. There is
no other way that you can go. You have now reached the
point where you have available to you Ma‘rifatullah.
“Allah will love you” means that you love Allah so that
you follow Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, and you have
Ma‘rifa of Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala. And you are forgiven
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The Book of Tawhid
for your wrong actions. In other words, the life-term is

wiped out, the whole thing is gone. Then you are told:
Allah is Ever-Forgiving, Most Merciful.
About this matter which we have been looking at: first

of all, it is like the Qur’an has one aspect for everybody
because the Book is revealed for the whole world. So
there are a few places in the Book where Allah, subhana-
hu wa ta’ala, says, “Ya ayyuhann-Nas.” He speaks to
mankind because there is always the possibility among
these millions and millions of people that there would be
one who hears the message.
Then Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, warns with tremen-

dous warnings which are terrifying. He says, “Ya ayyu-
hal-Kafirun” – to the kafirun this is going to happen,
make no mistake about it. There is the inevitability that
the darkness of that inner life will in the next world have
a punishment which will be a torment greater than the
torment they had in this world.
Then He says, “Ya ayyuhalladhina amanu,” and he speaks

to the muminun and gives them guidance. Then he tells
them that He has set up the people on different levels, and
He has mentioned, as we saw in the Surat al-Waqi’a, the
Muqarrabun, the people who come near. He has now
revealed this whole structure for the access to Ma‘rifa.
You might think that this is not in the Qur’an, but these
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ayats are embedded like jewels among the other decora-

tions and beauties of the Qur’an. That is that Allah, sub-
hanahu wa ta’ala, talks about Ma‘rifa. He talks about love
in a very high and exalted way which is connected to
direct knowledge. There is a knowledge that is not in-
formation, there is a knowledge that is illumination –
‘Ilm al-laduni, direct from Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala.
One of the shuyukh of the East made a very similar des-

cription to Imam al-Ghazali’s, radiyallahu ‘anhu. He said
that this love has ten stages. The first is Muwafaqa –
Compatibility. The way of having this compatibility
with Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, is to regard the enemies
of the Beloved as our enemies, and His friends as our
friends. So right at the beginning he makes this division
that is in the Qur’an: Do not take the kafirun as your
friends. You separate yourself from them and regard the
enemies of the Beloved as our enemies and the friends of
the Beloved, of Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, as our friends.
The next is Mayyal – Inclination. The heart is an instru-

ment and the heart begins to move. The word for heart
in Arabic is ‘qalb’ from the root QLB which means to
turn over. So the heart is always turning over, it is always
in motion. It is like that part of the steering of a ship or
submarine which is like a fulcrum that is always turning.
So the heart will always go to something, and if it does
not go to the halal it will go to the haram, and if it wants
the haram it will get the haram because it is like a mag-
net – if it wants the bad it will get the bad, if it wants
the good it will get the good. If it wants food, then the
food is coming to it, and the secret of understanding the
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The Book of Tawhid
destiny is that the food is coming to you before you get

hungry. It is actually on its way! It was a sheep in a field
which has been slaughtered, and then it has been hung,
and then sent to the butcher’s, it has been bought, it has
been taken to the kitchen – you think, “I’m hungry,” and
there it is on the plate in front of you. The Awliya say
that this meal has been coming to you from before the
creation of the world, because Allah is the Provider. The
rizq is from the Razzaq.
This is the first movement of the heart. First you are

compatible, you are in tune with the Beloved because
you have learned not to like the enemies of Allah. That
makes you compatible, it makes you acceptable. Then
comes inclination, and this is to busy yourself on your
quest for the Beloved. In other words, your heart begins
to ask, “Why is it so difficult? What do I do? What
should I do? How am I to move about? How am I to
have knowledge? How is it that I sit through the dhikr
and am not having something happen inside me?” and
the heart begins to incline.
Then the next stage is Muanasa – Fellowship. The heart

begins to want to be with the people who love Allah
because one of the signs of the lovers is that they love to
hear the name of the Beloved. It is like the story of Layla
and Majnun. It is enough for Majnun to hear the name of
Layla that he is happy. So he wants to go where her name
is said. The beginning of Muanasa is to attach yourself to
Allah sincerely and to detach yourself from everything
else. The way you detach yourself from everything else is
by beginning to get into the habit of sitting with the
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people who love Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala.
Then this closeness begins to take on a dynamic. The

next stage is Hawa – Passion. But this passion is the
opposite of the passion of the world, it is to keep the
heart in zuhd. In other words, not to let it have anything
except the passion for the dhikr, for the Presence of
Allah, for the knowledge of Allah. So with this, the heart
begins to become certain, it begins to become pliable, it
begins to become accessible to things it was not acces-
sible to before. That is the explanation of the famous
sentence of Imam al-Ghazali, radiyallahu ‘anhu: “The
person who has put one foot on the path is like a star.
The one who is advanced on the path is like a moon.
The one who has achieved knowledge of Allah is like the
sun. But the one who has not put one foot on the path
is like a stone.”
The fifth stage is Muwadda – Friendship. What makes the

friendship with Allah is that before anything else the domi-
nant experience of the heart is yearning. So you are reaching
beyond the business of living. You have a yearning that
reaches out past everything to do with ‘thing’. Shaykh
Muhammad ibn al-Habib, rahimahullah, says in the Diwan,
Withdraw yourself in Him

from all that is other-than Him.
The sixth stage is Khulla – Exclusive Friendship. You

book in not just your intellect and your heart, but you
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The Book of Tawhid
book in all the limbs of the body to be in this condition.

This is what Salat is for, this is what fasting is for, and
this is what the imara is for – that the limbs of the body
become worshipful.
The seventh stage is Mahabba – Affection. Mahabba is

that the intensity of this longing and love and desire
begins to burn up in the faqir the things which are no
good, the things which are not right. They just galvan-
ise and in their place comes the possibility of doing
good actions. You move from being concerned with
yourself, which brings about bad actions, to not being
concerned about yourself but having compassion for oth-
ers, because this love spills out into a love for the fuqara. It
spills out, it overflows so that your body overflows to take
in all the people and you do not know which is you and
which is them. This is because you then have taken on
good actions. Living in good actions, in what is called
birr – birr is active, it is not just goodness, but that you
are actively doing good.
Then you come to the eighth stage which is Shaghaf –

Violent Affection. So the intensity increases and the Shagh-
af becomes so that you are so intoxicated that you are liable,
as he says, “To risk tearing the veil of your secret,” because
to disclose the secret is like kufr. In other words, in the
dhikr you become so intoxicated that you might reveal
this knowledge which is coming into your heart of
Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, yet no-one must know.
Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib says in his Diwan:
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Do dhikr with gravity and sincerity

in front of the slaves of Allah.
The Ninth stage is Taym – Enslavement. You become a

captive slave of love, and that is to put on tajrid which is
to strip away. There are two tajrids: there is the tajrid of
the outward which is to do without, like zuhd. Zuhd is
not, “I won’t have it,” it is “I don’t need it.” Imam al-
Ghazali tells of Sayyiduna ‘Isa, ‘alayhi salam, having a
comb and a mirror. He saw a child running its hands
through its hair and he threw away the comb. Then he
saw the animal go to the water, and realised that if you
look into the water you can see yourself, so he threw
away the mirror.
This is outward tajrid, but the inner tajrid is to strip

away the body itself. In the khalwa there is a tajrid of the
batin which is that you lose the hearing, the sight, the
touch – you lose all the senses one by one, so that what
is left is a consciousness which in its turn vanishes which
is, in the language of Tasawwuf, ‘Fana fillah’. One of the
Sufis said about Taym, about this enslavement: “You
wish to buy Him – first sell yourself.” This is the counsel
of the ‘Arif to the one who wants this knowledge.
The tenth stage is Walah – Bewilderment. Muhiyuddin

Ibn al-‘Arabi has written many things about Walah. This
shaykh says it is, “To place the mirror of the heart before
the Beloved to be intoxicated in the wine of beauty.”
There is another of these shaykhs – Yahya al-Muniri, who
said, “Love (hubb) sends a message from the Beloved, and
the message to the heart is: ‘Be always in motion, restless.’
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The Book of Tawhid
To life: ‘Let go of joys.’ To the head: ‘Do not settle.’ To

the face: ‘Lose your complexion.’ To the body: ‘Say
goodbye to vanishing strength.’ To the eyes: ‘Shed tears,’
and to the lover himself: ‘Hide your condition. Shut your
mouth. Pull back from friends. Get rid of both the
worlds.’”
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APRIL 3RD 2004
Last week we were looking in the Qur’an at the use and

presentation by Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, of one word,
‘Hubb’ – the love of Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, and the
meanings of this love for the muminun.
Tonight we look at the meanings of one other word

which is ‘ibada. We will look at what defines ‘ibada,
which is that the way in which the mumin aligns him-
self with worship of Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, this
‘ibada is from ‘abd. So the worship of Allah, subhanahu
wa ta’ala, is itself slavehood. It is putting oneself under
the acknowledgement of the power of Allah, subhanahu
wa ta’ala, and it is from the knowledge in which the
‘ibada is performed that it takes its meaning.
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The Book of Tawhid
There is a very famous hadith in the Sahih collection

which recurs in various versions, where Rasul, sallallahu
‘alayhi wa sallam, in defining the importance of Salat
refers to a Salat with understanding. This is not the same
as someone just going through the motions of Salat, but
it is someone who knows what this standing, bowing
and prostrating means. Who is being worshipped is what
gives it meaning. This is what we will look at in the
following ayats.
Look at Surat Al ‘Imran (3:175), the second part of the

ayat:
But do not fear them – fear Me if you are muminun.
The word khawf is fear, actual fear. It is not a psycho-

logical condition, but physical. Khawf is what goes
through the body, like the man seeing the wild tiger.
Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, says, “Do not fear them –
fear Me if you are muminun,” so Allah is taking the
mumin and changing his whole identity so that ‘them’
in this general sense refers to the enemy, and it therefore
also refers to everything in the creation that the mumin
is afraid of. Do not be afraid of what opposes you and
what confronts you, but “fear Me,” fear Allah, sub-
hanahu wa ta’ala.
Here He is using a structure by which He says, “Me,”

and when Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, says that, it is as
though He is speaking from His Essence because He is
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speaking about Himself in the first person. Sometimes

He speaks in the Qur’an to the people about Himself as
‘He’, but here He is saying ‘Me,’ so this is an absolute
command from the very core of our understanding of
Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala.
“Fear Me if you are muminun.” In other words, the

condition of being mumin, of being one who trusts in
Allah, is that he has fear of Allah. Fear of Allah means
that you cannot have fear of anything else. It is a change
in the condition of the human creature who has become
mumin, and at this point the fear that he would have of
the other, and of the enemy, and of what opposes him,
this khawf becomes something very deep that is fear of
Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala. That in itself would be so
great that it would paralyse the mumin if it were the
only condition under which he could live, and great
Awliya have had such a great fear of Allah, subhanahu
wa ta’ala, at a certain stage of their journey to Allah that
they have become transfixed by it and Allah, by His
power, has taken them out of that and this is because in
the language of Tasawwuf, khawf is balanced against
raja’, hope.
There is a famous story of the man who came to Shaykh

Muhammad ibn al-Habib, rahimahullah, from the
Sahara to give him the Idhn of being in the Darqawi
Tariqa. Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib, rahimahullah,
was then teaching Arabic in the Qarawiyyin mosque in
Fes, and this man had been sent with an instruction from
his shaykh: “Go to the Qarawiyyin and when you get
there, there will be a circle of ‘ulama sitting. Go up to
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The Book of Tawhid
them and say, ‘I am the guest of Allah’,” which is a way

of asking for hospitality, “and whoever accepts, you go
with that man.”
So this man, who was one of the salihun, went there and
said, “I am the guest of Allah,” and they all bowed their
heads, they did not want the bother of this guest from
the Sahara. “I am the guest of Allah.” The third time he
asked, Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib, rahimahullah,
said, “Marhaban,” and took him.
He took him to a tiny little room he had in the wall of

Fes. The room is built inside the wall and so the steps up
are very steep. As he climbed the steps, this man who had
been sent to Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib put one
foot up on the step and said, “Khawf,” then his next foot
up and said, “Raja’.” “Khawf! Raja’!” Shaykh Muhammad
ibn al-Habib, who at that point was one of the great ‘ula-
ma of Fes, who had no experience of Tasawwuf directly,
suddenly was confronted with another kind of man and
it had an effect on him. This man stayed with him and
Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib never asked where he
had come from or why he was there, he accepted him as
his guest and asked him no questions, and the man stay-
ed with him for almost two years.
In this time Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib had seen

that this man was someone who never said anything
against anybody and if people spoke badly, liking to
gossip and attack people, he would leave the room. Also,
all the time he was doing Wird and making Ismul-
‘Adham. Then one day he said, “I have a letter for you.”
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Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib said, “I am not

expecting any letters!” The man said, “It is for you!” He
said, “Well then, it is from you. You read it.” So he read
out from his shaykh in Tinjdad giving Idhn to Shaykh
Muhammad ibn al-Habib to take the Tariqa.
In all this the resonance which made him enter the Sufic
path was the impact of this man climbing a stair where
on every step he was poised between fear and hope. So
this khawf is a reality for the mumin – that he has fear of
Allah. “Do not fear them – fear Me if you are muminun.”
This is the beginning of the correct relation of ‘ibada.
Now we look at Surat az-Zumar (39:36-37):
Is Allah not enough for His slave?

Yet they try to scare you with others apart from Him.
If Allah misguides someone, he has no guide
and if Allah guides someone, he cannot be misguided.
Is Allah not Almighty, Exactor of Revenge?
We are now understanding the ‘Who’ of Allah, how we

can speak of Allah, Who is dealing with us because we
cannot say that we are dealing with Him.
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The Book of Tawhid
Allah is asking, “Is Allah not enough?” You must

remember that we have all been educated with a material-
ist education. We have all received an education which
believed that we had to master things and by mastering
things it extended that we had to master people. The Deen
of Islam does not accord with this, which is why in the
present day you have such a chaos because people are
trying to behave with that education and viewpoint as
Muslims. This is why you have this horrible situation in
Palestine and the horrible situation of all the Arab peoples
for whom this is their language they use over breakfast.
They do not know, because they have taken on this

world-view of the kuffar, and yet here the Revelation is
saying: “Is Allah not enough for His slave?” This is a
tremendous statement. Are you then looking for some
other power to take you through the whole process of
your life? Do you really think that there is some process
that you can do that is going to support you when the
Islamic position is that all you are called upon is not to
do nothing, but to obey Allah? And if you obey Allah,
He is enough for you. You do not need anything else.
The things in turn will obey you.
“Is Allah not enough for you? Yet they try to scare you
with others apart from Him” – that is coming out of the
television set every day. That is what the news is – to
make you feel that power lies elsewhere than with Allah,
subhanahu wa ta’ala.
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If Allah misguides someone he has no guide.
The word for guide is Hadi. One of the Names of Allah

is Al-Hadi so if you are not guided by the One who
Guides then you are not going to be guided. There is
not some other guidance that you will get that will take
you through the process of life with success. “If Allah
misguides someone, he has no guide and if Allah guides
someone, he cannot be misguided.” In other words the
people who follow in this path of Allah, subhanahu wa
ta’ala, they are safe, they are secure.
Then Allah says: “Is Allah not Almighty, Exactor of Re-

venge?” He is All-Powerful but he also takes revenge. So
it is reminding you that this One you are being guided
by is not going to let off those people who oppose you.
They are not going to escape. This One who is All-
Powerful, who is guiding the muminun, is also the One
who will take a terrible revenge on those who do not
obey Him. This also means that what you might call the
‘foreign policy’ of the Muslims has to be based on this.
The transaction of the Muslims has to be based on this.
This is part of the power of Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala –
that He does not let the enemy of Allah escape.
We come now to a very important thing which you have

to remember because it is something that the Sufis lean
very heavily on for the knowledge to give them strength
and insight. It runs right through the Futuhat al-
Makkiyya of Shaykh Ibn al-‘Arabi where he talks about
Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, as the Creator. Allah says in
Surat az-Zumar (39:38):
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The Book of Tawhid
If you ask them,

‘Who created the heavens and the earth?’
they will say, ‘Allah’.
What Allah is telling us by this is that the kuffar are not

necessarily atheists but that they have in fact limited
Allah. The kuffar think they live in an already-created
reality and then on this created reality they run wild and
do what they like. This is not the truth of the matter.
In the rest of the ayat Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, shows

them that that is not how it is. There is nothing in crea-
tion that is not in the process of action. Allah is One in
His Names and His Attributes and His Essence, and He
has created the things in a dynamic state. Therefore not
only the human beings, the animals, the living organ-
isms, but even the chemical foundation of the world, the
mountains, what Ibn al-‘Arabi called the ‘gypsum foun-
dation’ of creation – all of these things are in motion.
Anyone who has any doubt should look at what has been
happening in Turkey and look at what has been happen-
ing in Iran. The mountains and valleys have been erupt-
ing, splitting, everything is in motion – there are gases
coming out of the earth at every minute, the whole
thing is alive.
The evolutionary lie is that there were these simple org-

anisms which got more and more complex and then,
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poff! you have man, and that is the creational process.

Then this man does what he wants, he makes up his
rules, he makes up his ideas – the whole of the eigh-
teenth century was men making up ideas about how they
should live and what existence was – they invented the
whole thing!
Allah is telling us that the kuffar will say that Allah

created the heavens and the earth but that is not under-
standing because you cannot separate a man from his
actions. Therefore the creation of man enclothes the
fulfilment of the destiny of the man. That is part of His
creation, it is part of the creativity, just as the creation of
the birds, the animal kingdom involves the whole cycle
of mating and reproduction. For instance, the whole cy-
cle of hibernation of the bears – there is no such thing as
a bear without hibernation, it is not possible. So creation
goes through the seasons, it goes through life.
When the kuffar give this insufficient answer, Allah,

subhanahu wa ta’ala, tells us to respond with this:
Say: ‘So what do you think?

If Allah desires harm for me,
can those you call upon besides Allah remove His harm?
Or if He desires mercy for me
can they withhold His mercy?’
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The Book of Tawhid
In other words, all this dynamic process of life which the

kuffar call history and which the sociologists call social
relations and so on, is actually under the command of
Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala. When good comes it is from
Allah, when trouble comes it is from Allah and they can-
not control how Allah works with His creation, making
it happen.
The position of wisdom is then given:
Say: ‘Allah is enough for me.

All those who truly trust put their trust in Him.’
Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, has set out that there is in the

human race a body of people who have another orienta-
tion which by its nature, because it contains the wisdom
about how existence works, has to triumph. But they can
only triumph if they are in that circle of the muminun
who are defined by ‘ibada, and their visa, their passport
is ‘ibada.
Look at Surat al-Hadid (57:22):
Nothing occurs, either in the earth or in yourselves,

without its being in a Book before We make it happen.
That is something easy for Allah.
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This is the depths of the wisdom of Qur’an which is

only to be found in Qur’an. Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala,
opens up all His treasures of His secrets to the muminun.
“It is in a Book,” means that it has already been stated, it
has already been sent down. The history is told.
Sayyiduna ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, radiyallahu ‘anhu, was

with Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, and he asked, “O
Rasul! Are we on a matter that is just beginning or are
we on a matter that is just finished?” Rasul, sallallahu
‘alayhi wa sallam, said, “The Book is written and the ink
is dry.” ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab then said, “If that is the
case, what then is the use of my making an effort to do
things if it is already determined what is going to hap-
pen?” Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, said, “Every
creature is on a pattern from Allah and he will do that
which is the destined thing for him, and he cannot esc-
ape it.” ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab said, “Now I can go back
to work.” Look at the quality of those people. That did
not stop him, he said that he was one of those people
who would do the utmost to serve Allah and, “I will go
back to work.”
It was not an imprisoning thing or a crushing thing but

a liberating thing. That is why the muminun make the
du’a, “O Allah, give me an Iman that is lasting.” You
want the seal of the destiny to be secure so that you die
in Islam, so that your path all the way through is dy-
namic. This is something easy for Allah. Then in the
next ayat of Surat al-Hadid Allah says:
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The Book of Tawhid
That is so that you will not be grieved

about the things that pass you by
or exult about the things that come to you.
This is very significant because Allah defines for the mu-

min, like the question of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, the con-
dition in which he is left. These two opposites do not
anymore impinge on your heart. Once you understand
how things are, you will not be grieved about the things
that have passed you by. There is no such thing as having
missed something. That is it! That is the who-ness of
you. And you do not exult about the things that come to
you because they have come by the destiny and by the
same power of the One who has held other things back
from you. So you become unified in your understanding
of Tawhid.
Surat az-Zumar (39:62-64):
Allah is the Creator of everything

and He is Guardian over everything.
Look at the uncompromising viewpoint that is offered

the Muslim, it is like standing on granite, it puts you on
firm foundations. You cannot be shaken because once
you grasp the Tawhid of Allah you are men of know-
ledge, you know how existence works. You must realise
that the kafirun do not know what is going on. They do
not understand the process. The Muslims who have
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taken knowledge from the Book of Allah and from the

Sunna of Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, they know
that Allah is the Creator of everything and He is the
Guardian over everything. If He is the Guardian over
everything, then He is the Guardian over you and you
will move in a confidence that what you will do is that
which will best secure your safety. This includes every-
thing, including war. It is an understanding of security
and safety that is inside the person.
This next thing is very important. Allah, subhanahu wa

ta’ala, says:
The keys of the heaven and earth belong to Him.

It is those who reject Allah’s Signs who are the losers.
He does not say that just the heavens and earth belong to
Him, we have already established that, He also says the
keys of the heavens and earth. That is the patterns, and
the patterns of the heavens are all those things that bring
to life all the living forms from the Unseen into the Seen.
So the disappearance of the species is under Allah’s law as
well as the appearance of the strong mumin at the time
the Muslims need it. All these things are because Allah
has the keys and He, subhanahu wa ta’ala, unlocks events.
We may not like the events which are unlocked, but the
ones who have this strong Tawhid can read events and
45
The Book of Tawhid
know what to do. For example, Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi

wa sallam, said that there will come a time when the best
property will be sheep and to hide and retire in the moun-
tains. Alhamdulillah, we have not reached that point, but
there is a point when that will be the thing the mumin
knows to do. The keys to the heavens are with Allah and
also the keys of the earth belong to Him. This means
that He unlocks events just as He unlocks living forms.
He unlocks the earth and makes this earth sterile and
makes this earth fertile. He makes this earth shake and
He brings down a city. All of this is in His power that
the patterns of existence are in His hands.
Allah says: “Those who reject Allah’s signs are the

losers.” Allah’s signs are those manifestations in existence
of His power. Everything which is happening in the
world is to teach the mumin, even the things we do not
like, even the situation today with our Ummah – there
are signs and Allah is giving us indications. What He
disapproves of and what He approves of have not chang-
ed, so we have to interpret them and there are those
things which awaken in the Muslims this vibration
which we call khawf, that you fear Allah. At the same
time, when things become intolerable, Allah also has a
guidance that He never puts on the mumin more than he
can bear.
Finally Allah says:
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Say: ‘Do you order me

to worship something other than Allah,
you ignorant people?’
The ignorant people are all those we are dealing with in

the world today, the atheists and the people who have cor-
rupted former religions who are completely lost. They are
ignorant. Our strength lies in our knowledge Allah has
given us through the Qur’an and through the pattern of
what is pleasing behaviour to Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala,
which is that of the Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam.
Now we look at Surat al-Ahzab (33:41-43):
You who have Iman! Remember Allah much,

and glorify Him in the morning and the evening.
It is He who calls down blessing on you,
as do His angels,
to bring you out of the darkness into the light.
He is Most Merciful to the muminun.
Allah gives a direct order how to keep in you this inner

fulcrum, this inner compass that is going to put you into
a knowledgeable state about the events which come in
your life. You will know how to deal with the different
47
The Book of Tawhid
things of existence because everything in existence is alive

– you are not wandering in a desert but living through a
situation where everything is alive and full of possibili-
ties which Allah is offering you and giving you at every
moment. You will know how to discriminate – one of
the names of the Book is the Furqan – and you will
know from this wisdom how to react in every situation.
Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, says: “You who have Iman!”

and then He says that the way the whole thing is kept
alive is: “Remember Allah much.” This is the famous
phrase which repeats in the Qur’an, ‘dhikr kathiran’ –
lots of dhikr. Allah is saying that this reality you are
living in is so tremendous that while you have been given
the pattern which is enough for you there is much more.
You can go on and on by degrees because Allah explains
in Qur’an that the muminun are raised up by degrees of
Divine knowledge which they receive from Allah.
One of the Bedouin came to Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa

sallam, and said, “Is it true that I have to confirm that
Allah is One and Muhammad, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam,
is His Messenger?” He said, “Yes.” Then he asked, “Is it
true I have to make Salat five times a day?” He said, “Yes.”
“Is it true I have to fast every year?” He said, “Yes.” “Is it
true I have to pay the Zakat?” He said, “Yes.” “Is it true I
have to take the Hajj?” He said, “Yes.” “Well that is all I
know, I am not doing anything else!” Rasul, sallallahu
‘alayhi wa sallam, said, “Then you will have success.”
Another time, a Bedouin said to him, “I do the five

prayers, I am not doing anything else. That’s it!” Rasul,
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sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, smiled and said, “Allah will

give you the Garden. He will reward you.” In other words,
because of the mercy of Allah the minimum is enough.
Yet among the muminun there is an elite body of people
who are not content with this, they want more. They
have read in the Qur’an that Allah raises people up by
degrees and the highest degree is the people called the
Muqarrabun, the people who draw near to Allah. Be-
cause He has not got place, Allah has explained: “Allah
is nearer to you than your jugular vein,” so it is a near-
ness which has no spatiality in it at all. This nearness is
the condition of the ‘Arifin and the salihun. This is the
Qur’anic language for the Sufi. The Muqarrabun are the
Sufis.
“Glorify Him in the morning and the evening” – that is

in the Fajr and after the Isha. “It is He who calls down
blessing on you, as do His angels, to bring you out of the
darkness into the light.” The interesting thing is that in
another part of the Qur’an (Surat al-Ahzab, 33:56), Allah
specifically says about the Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa
sallam:
Allah and His angels

call down blessings on the Prophet.
You who have Iman! call down blessings on him
and ask for complete peace and safety for him.
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The Book of Tawhid
But here it is more. One cannot make a mistake about

this so we went to the great tafsir of Shaykh Ibn ‘Ajiba
who says that Allah says: “My Salat is a mercy on you,
sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, and on your Ummah.” Now,
with overflowing love of Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, He
makes the salat on Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, and
the angels on the whole Ummah of the Muslims. So we
are a community overwhelmed by the protection and
love and the blessing of Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala. It is
because of him we all get this direct, Divine covering and
protection and blessing of Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala.
Then Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, says: “He is the Most

Merciful to the muminun.” We are in a position of abso-
lute security, absolute safety and we cannot go wrong as
long as we remember that He is the Lord of the Universe,
and the Lord of our destinies. I think we will stop there,
but there is more!
HADRA
We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, to cover us in His

Rahma. We ask from Allah a great forgiveness beyond
anything we could merit. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa
ta’ala, to cover our wrong action. We ask Allah, sub-
hanahu wa ta’ala, to strengthen us in our good action. We
ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, to make us people of good
actions. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, to raise us up
to degree after degree of knowledge. We ask Allah, sub-
hanahu wa ta’ala, in all the destiny to give us an Iman that
lasts to the grave. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, to
let us die among the salihun and in the best of company.
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We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, to give victory to the

Muslims. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, to pardon
the Arabs for their having abandoned the Deen of Islam.
We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, in His Mercy to bring
them back to the Deen by the secrets of His Qur’an. We
ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, to revive the Muslims in
every land. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, to remove
the false ‘ulama from their places. We ask Allah, sub-
hanahu wa ta’ala, to remove the thrones from their places.
We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, to place thrones of
honour and thrones of ‘ibada to rule the Muslims. We ask
Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, to give us leaders to restore
us to our full splendour. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa
ta’ala, to let it happen during the lives of the people here
assembled. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, to protect
the children of the people here assembled and to give
them a world in which the Deen is stronger than it has
ever been.
We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, to make the people

of this Tariqa travel wherever they want in the world and
to establish the Deen wherever they go. We ask Allah,
subhanahu wa ta’ala, for benefits beyond anything we
deserve. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, to be gener-
ous to us by His promise of generosity and to give us
generosity on our fellow Muslims in order to merit such
generosity from Allah. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa
ta’ala, whose generosity cannot be compared to ours, to
be merciful to us, to strengthen us and to give us the
Sirat al-Mustaqim into a future with hope dominating
our fear.
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APRIL 10 TH 2004
We started with the subject of the adab of the mumin in

relation to his ‘ibada and I am just going to continue. It
is something that has an ongoing path and this is one bit
of it. Also, inshallah, we are going to stop at a very, not
confusing, but contradictory part, so that I will also have
to introduce the subject for next week, because other-
wise you will think that this is the whole story! We are
now moving into a very serious, deep matter so I ask you
to please try and sit still and concentrate. Fold your
hands, or look at the Qur’an.
We are now going to look at the subject of Allah as the

Creator and then His creation, His creatures. We are
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The Book of Tawhid
looking at Allah in His power as Creator. So we look at

Surat al-Hadid (57:1-3 and 6):

Everything in the heavens and the earth glorifies Allah.
He is the Almighty, the All-Wise.
The kingdom of the heavens and the earth belong to Him.
He gives life and causes to die.
He has power over all things.
He is the First and the Last,
the Outward and the Inward.
He has knowledge of all things.
Then the last ayat is:
He makes night merge into day

and day merge into night.
He knows what the heart contains.
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We are beginning to get an understanding in these ayats

about Allah as the Creator. “Everything in the heavens
and the earth glorifies Allah. He is the Almighty, the All-
Wise.” The first thing is that everything in the heavens
and the earth glorifies Allah. This is an indication of
something that the Sufis and the salihun have understood
for hundreds of years, and which the scientists have
belatedly discovered in the last hundred years – the things
of the heavens and the earth are not static and dead.
Everything is alive. Everything is in action. The atom is
not a static thing but a whirling, speeding thing. Every-
thing is in motion and this motion is the glorification of
Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala.
Everything in the heavens and the earth.
‘Heavens’ is samawati, which also means those things

which are in the Unseen, which are going to come into
the existent realm to glorify Allah. In other words, the
forms that have not emerged into the created world are
also glorifying Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala.
The kingdom of the heavens and the earth,
– the kingdom of the unseen world and the visible world

– belongs to Him.
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The Book of Tawhid
He gives life and He causes to die.
Part of this nature of the created event is the giving of

life and the making to die. What happens in the span of
time, between birth and death, coming into existence
and going out of existence – this is all under the power
of Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala. It is His Action that
brings to life and also terminates it. This means also that
the creation of the living forms is under the power of
Allah in its totality.
You must remember that part of the essence of kufr is

the idea that the creation is a static thing into which
comes man with an intellect which is then free to behave
in a certain way. The understanding of the Muslims is
that Allah is the Creator of the creatures, and also this
means that the human being’s actions are part of his
existence. You cannot separate a man from his actions.
What a man does in that span of time is all under the
command of Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala.
He has power over all things.
This means that He is the activator of them. Power is not

some magical thing that intervenes with ‘free radicals’
doing what they want and suddenly some divine force
pounces on them. Power over them is, by His power, to
let them do that which they are going to do. This is very
important for the Muslims to understand.
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This is a very important ayat for the Sufis. It is an ayat

which has openings, Fatiha, in it for the ‘Arif. Moulay
al-‘Arabi ad-Darqawi, radiyallahu ‘anhu, explains how
he achieved his Tawhid with Allah: when he was in
khalwa, he heard a voice declaring this ayat. He heard
this and said, “I understand that He is the First and the
Last, and I understand that He is the Inward, but I do
not understand how He is the Outward.” He was saying
that in his correct upbringing as an ‘alim, of course, that
Allah is exalted above everything that could be associated
with Him. The voice then said, “If He had meant any-
thing else He would have said it.” This confirmation that
He was not only the Inward but that He was the Out-
ward was what gave him his Tawhid and he passed out
of the consciousness of this world.
At the minute we are looking at this aspect of exalting

Allah over everything with which He can be associated
and yet, at the heart of it, we have to come back to this
element about the nature of what we can say about
Allah, confirmed by what He tells us, that He is the First
and the Last, the Outward and the Inward.
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He makes the night merge into day

and day merge into night.
While we are getting an understanding of Allah being

exalted above the creation and having power over the
creation, we also discover that the One who is the Master
of the cosmic events of night and day – which means the
whole nature of the creation of the stars and the sun and
the moon –
He knows what the breasts contain.
Sudur in Arabic means ‘breasts’ but it is more correct to

say ‘hearts’ because it is saying that Allah knows what is
inside the human creature. Inside the human creature is
the impulse to action, the force to move and make things
happen, to do things. It is not an emotional thing about
being angry or not, “He knows what is in the heart,”
and the heart moves by impulse. The word qalb, which
means heart, is from the root ‘qalaba’ which means to
turn over, to transform, to change. So the very central
organ of man is itself in motion with this Divine com-
motion that has been set up in it.
So you will find that Allah being exalted above every-

thing and the Creator of everything is put alongside His
power to know what is in the breasts of man.
Now we will go to Surat Ya Sin (36:82). We have come
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to the point where we have to look at the created things

because we have to understand the nature of how Allah
is with His creation, which is not a simple matter and yet
it is not a complicated matter. It is simply that you must
see it with the eye of understanding. One of the great
Sufis of India said: “This matter will never be settled by
logic.” It is like when you tell someone something and
they get it: “I’ve got it!” It is not a mental process but a
‘seeing the whole point of something.’ This is how you
will understand the nature of Tawhid.
His command when He desires a thing

is just to say to it, ‘Be!’ and it is.
Here Allah plunges us right into the secret of His secrets.

He unveils it for the muminun openly. There are no
mysteries in Islam, what is unveiled is unveiled. What
the heart is able to grasp is another matter.
Allah’s command when He desires a thing is just to say

to it, ‘Be!’ and it is. Kun fa yakun – it is almost like the
grammar breaks down because the ‘fa’ is very fine usage.
It is not ‘and’ or ‘it follows that’, rather it is like you
could put ‘Be’ then a stroke, then ‘it is’ – Be/it is. You
have to concentrate on this because it is very strange.
When Allah wants a thing, He just says to it “Kun fa
yakun,” “Be!” and it is. If you look at it one way it does
not make sense. I am not being discourteous to Allah, I
am unlocking this so you see it. Astaghfirullah, if Allah
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The Book of Tawhid
said this to it and it was there, it would not make sense

because if it is already there, how does He say to it to be
there? If it is not there, how can He say to it, “Kun fa
yakun?” We have to understand this because neither of
the ordinary outside situations click with common sense.
When Allah’s Command, the Amr, comes on His desire,

His Irada – when He wills it, it means that the thing is
already in His knowledge, so He orders it and it is in
being. In this sense we can understand, by metaphor,
that the creator of forms has an idea of a form and then
he makes it happen. At the moment we will stick with
this very crude metaphor because we are going to find
out something even more devastating and overwhelming
about how Allah deals with His creation, to do with
something that is not ‘exalted above’ but intimately close.
Before the thing comes into the creation – and we

cannot say ‘it is in the mind of Allah’ because we have
no authority to say that – but it is in the knowledge of
Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala. The thing is in His know-
ledge and when He is ready and when He wills it, it
comes into being. So we have taken one step into an
understanding of Tawhid.
Now we go to Surat Maryam (19:9). Now Allah,

subhanahu wa ta’ala, opens the doors, reveals the secrets.
He explains His way of dealing with existence openly.
Remember that we are not dealing with ayats of hukm,
we are dealing with ayats that explain about existence.
We would have to take a different adab to the ayats that
say what is forbidden and permitted. At the moment we
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are dealing with Allah being the Creator.
He said, ‘It will be so!

Your Lord says, “That is easy for me to do.
I created you before, when you were not anything.”’
This is about the gift of a child. There are just two

things in this ayat and first of all – although we will not
go into the details of it – the slave is being told of a
generous gift of life to a child from Allah on the parent.
The first part of it is that the slave, because he is of the
salihun and of the exalted knowers, when he is told how
it will be, although it does not seem to be possible, he
accepts it. It is that acceptance of Allah’s dealing with his
slave that allows Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, to inform
the slave of a knowledge that he did not have until he
heard this.
Your Lord says, ‘That is easy for Me to do.’
‘Lord’ means the Rabb, Allah, in His capacity to create

all the living forms and all the inter-connectedness of all
the forms. This is Rububiyyat, which is from Rabb, and
Rububiyyat involves not only the creation of the forms
but also their connectedness, like all the levels of the
forest from the tops of the trees down to the insects at
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the root of the tree. All these are interconnected just as

the nations of men and the movements of men, and the
vast migrations of men all come under Rububiyyat.
So this is the Lord saying that He will give this child,

and then He says:
I created you before, when you were not anything.
So He explains to the father the commentary on Kun fa

yakun: “I created you before, when you were not any-
thing.” First of all you were not anything, the command
came, “Kun!” and you were. Allah created you so that there
was a ‘you’ to create. We find when we look elsewhere in
Qur’an that in fact all the human creatures were called
before Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, before the creation of
the world and He said to them (7:172):
Am I not your Lord?
This is how Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, deals with the

creation. It is a dynamic, ongoing event in the in-time.
All the in-time is under His power, which is beyond time
and is not associated with anything.
We go to Surat al-Mulk (67:13-14):
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Whether you keep your words secret or say them out loud,
Again we get this reminder that He knows what the

breasts contain. This impulse of the human heart to go
this way or that way, to be secretive or open – all this, He
knows what the heart contains. This is about the abso-
lute command that Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, has over
the slave.
Does He who created not then know?

He is the All-Pervading, the All-Aware.
He is the Creator so Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, says,

‘How am I not to know since you are my creation?’ This
is the dynamic relationship into which Allah, subhanahu
wa ta’ala, is putting his slaves. He is not only putting the
muminun into this position, He is putting the kuffar in
this position. He is keeping those who behave in one
way in this position, and those who behave in another
way in this position, which means that this Divine know-
ledge is present in every situation.
“Does He who created not then know?” You must not

think that Allah made the universe and the stars and the
constellations, and then life came into things – this is the
position of the kuffar. The position of the Muslim is that
alongside this enormous cosmic majesty of Allah’s crea-
tion, subhanahu wa ta’ala, there is also the fact of His
intimate connection to His slave. The Names He gives
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are Al-Latif and Al-Khabir, which Hajj ‘Abdalhaqq

Bewley has heroically called the All-Pervading and the
All-Aware. He has also said that Latif has the meaning of
graciousness and kindness and also of penetrating right
through everything, pervasive but with infinite kindness
and closeness. Khabir is total awareness that takes in
everything all the time. This is how we must understand
Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, all the time.
We go back to Surat Ya Sin (36:79) for a vital phrase:
He has total knowledge of each created thing.
The One you worship when you say, “Allahu akbar,” –

the ‘akbar’ of your takbir is that He has total knowledge
of each created thing. Total knowledge not only means
the biological creature but everything that is in it, its
history from the moment of it coming into the world
until the moment of its death. Allah, subhanahu wa
ta’ala, knew you at birth and was aware of you when you
died. This is the knowledge Allah has when He says that
He has total knowledge of each created thing.
To realise the majesty of Allah and also this reality of

Divine Presence is to realise that it is also a knowledge that
involves all the creatures from the beginning of time until
the in-time comes to an end. It is one process, and this
process is the knowledge of Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala.
We are going to look at how the mutakallimun see this.
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What we are faced with is that the creature is known to

Allah in the Unseen and the ‘Kun’ brings the creature into
the seen world, into the existent world. The mutakallimun
call the forms in the knowledge of Allah before they are
created, the ‘known’. They are known by Allah, but the
Sufis have a special term for them because they think it is
very important to get this thing right, so the Sufis have
invented a vocabulary based on the Qur’anic ayats. They
call this ‘al-‘Ayan ath-thabita’ which means ‘source-
forms’, although it is difficult to translate. ‘Al-‘Ayan ath-
thabita’ is when Allah has the – I do not like to use the word
– ‘idea’ because this is not correct, but He has the form in
His knowledge before the ‘kun’ brings it into existence. The
Sufis call it a source-form, a form from the Source.
At this stage of our understanding of Tawhid we have to

make a complete division, otherwise we will go outside
Tawhid. We make a division between the known – that is
the ‘ayn ath-thabita before it comes into creation, before
the ‘kun’ – and the Knower, Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala.
The known has a form, limited, determined, individual-
ised, specific. The Knower is free of limitation, free of
determination and is not a form. The known subsists only
in the knowledge of the Knower, it has no independent
existence until the ‘kun’. The Knower exists in Himself,
totally independent, He is not dependent on anything.
Surat al-Ikhlas:
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The Book of Tawhid

“Say: ‘He is Allah, Absolute Oneness,
Allah, the Everlasting Sustainer of all.
He has not given birth and was not born.
And no one is comparable to Him.’”
The known has no attribute but it has a capacity in its

form to receive attributes. The Knower is the possessor
of these Source Attributes. Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala,
has these Attributes: life, knowledge, will, power, hear-
ing, sight and speech. So when He makes the order:
“Kun! fa yakun,” He gives a bit of life, a bit of knowledge,
a bit of will, a bit of power, a bit of hearing, a bit of sight,
a bit of speech – we call them the borrowed attributes
because they are in-time, and Allah is outside time but He
lets the form, when it comes into being, have a limited
‘rental’. The human being has a rental on these capacities
or attributes because he is designed in order to be able to
receive them.
The known forms, before they come into existence, are

passive, have no existence, no attributes and no activity.
When the ‘kun’ comes they can then have these things
from Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, because the Knower
has activity, the Knower is active, He is the Actor. All the
actions of the creatures come from the Actor. There is no
action of the creatures but from the gift of Allah, sub-
hanahu wa ta’ala, in the order of the ‘Kun! fa yakun.’
Power belongs absolutely to Allah and He gives these, like
sprinkling water, onto the forms to bring them to life.
Thus we are able to say that the relation of the known to
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the Knower, of the forms to the Creator of the forms is

otherness. The forms are other-than-Allah, they are ghayr,
they are masiwallah. Everything that is existent, in the
world, in the cosmos is other-than-Allah: we have two.
This may sound very strange but to arrive at Tawhid we
must posit a very powerful ‘two’ because otherwise we
are not going to get it right. We would end up like the
mushriks or the kuffar.
Let us look at Surat Al ‘Imran (3:28 & 30). It is one

phrase which comes twice:
Allah advises you to be afraid of Him.
Hajj ‘Abdalhaqq has very wisely given a different aspect

of the word ‘yuhadhirukum’ in each of these two ayats.
In one ayat: “Allah advises you to be afraid of Him,” and
in the other: “Allah advises you to beware of Him.”
What this is, is that Allah says not to try to understand
the Essence. The Act of Allah you must understand, the
Attributes of Allah you must understand, but when we
come to the Essence from which these complex things
emerge – do not try. Be afraid. Beware, because you
cannot penetrate it.
Also, Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, in a famous

hadith, because of these revelations, warned the mumin-
un not to contemplate, in the language of the mutakal-
limun, the ‘Dhat’, the Essence of Allah, subhanahu wa
ta’ala. Imam al-Ghazali goes to great lengths very
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The Book of Tawhid
beautifully trying to understand it by looking at all the

processes of the Act. Dependent on the Act are the Attri-
butes: without the capacity to move and so on, you can-
not realise something, but when you go from the Act to
the Attributes that make it happen you ask, “Where do
the Attributes come from?” and you reach the Essence.
Imam al-Ghazali tries very beautifully to see if he can
get any further but he stops and says that you cannot go
any further. That is as far as you can go.
So let us say, in the language of the mutakallimun and

the ‘ulama, that Allah is Khaliq, the Creator, and the
creatures are makhluq. Allah is Rabb, and the creatures
are marbub. Allah is Ilah, He is worshipped, and the
creatures are maluh, worshippers. Allah is Maalik with a
long ‘a’, He is Master, Controller of all the destinies, and
the slaves are mamluk. The Sufis say very beautifully:
“The Haqq is Existence, the ‘abd is non-existence. Trans-

formation of Reality is not possible, so the Haqq is Haqq
and the ‘abd is ‘abd.” The Lord is the Lord and the slave
is the slave.
This means that all these shayateen of the orientalists

who say that the Sufis are pantheists and say that God is
the creation, have not understood anything at all of what
is being taught. People talk about ‘Wahdat al-wujud’ yet
the term does not appear once in all the four hundred
books of Ibn al-‘Arabi. When they talk about that they
imply that God IS the universe. But the slave is the slave
and the Lord is the Lord. Shaykh Ibn al-‘Arabi says,
“There is no limit to slavehood. There is no line by
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which he can pass over from created to Creator. There is

no way that the Creator in His vastness will allow that
He should be slave. He has, by His wisdom, determined
it this way, this is how He set up creation.”
We now go to the famous and well-known ayat in Surat

Fatir (35:15):
O Mankind, you are the poor, in need of Allah,

whereas Allah is the Rich-beyond-need,
the Praise-Worthy.
This is a statement of what I have just said. The creature

is totally dependent and Allah is totally Independent. The
position of the slave in need of Allah is that he is in need
of Allah for his living, his knowing, his seeing, his
hearing, his willing – for all these attributes he needs this
gift of Allah which has been given because He has made a
form that can receive these capacities during the in-time
span that is destined for him. But he is totally dependent,
and Allah is totally independent of that creature and of
that creature’s functioning with these attributes that He
has allowed him in the in-time to touch upon.
At this point we have to say that the essence of Tawhid

is based on this fundamental duality, that Allah is highly
exalted above anything that can be associated with Him.
This does not change, but we are going to enter into
another zone of knowledge which Allah has opened to
us in the Qur’an which involves the nearness of Allah,
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subhanahu wa ta‘ala. The slave is not just looking up in

terror and awe at the majesty of a distant Creator, he is
also conscious that the One who is the Creator of the
universe, of the stars, of the planets, of the sun and moon
and the other creatures and the land that they are on, is
this One Who is close to you.
I think we had better look at one more ayat, otherwise I

would leave you with a position which is not actually the
whole, proper position of the Muslims. We have to look
at the ‘ananiyya’, the ‘I’-ness of the creature in this posi-
tion of ‘abd, before this Almighty Creator – otherwise
we would all go home depressed! We will put just one
foot in the door of this subject.
Look at Surat al-Hadid (57:4). By the way, this refers to

the creation in six days. We know from other ayats in
the Qur’an that the six days are not literally six days.
You have to remember something which many people
forget – there were not ‘days’ until Allah placed the earth
in orbit around the sun. Days only happen once the
whole thing is already done. When, in another place,
Allah says that a day with Allah is like fifty thousand
years in the way you count – it is like a phase in the
creation over a time-span that is beyond our knowledge.
The people who want to attack the Qur’an with ignor-
ance say, “Six days? We know better than that, we are
scientists,” but they do not know anything.
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It is He who created the heavens and the earth in six days,

then established Himself firmly on the Throne.
By ‘throne’ He means the cosmic Throne of the might

of the creation.
He knows what goes into the earth

and what comes out of it,
what comes down from heaven
and what goes up into it.
He knows the whole creational process. Then, having

made this declaration about the majesty of Allah, He says:
He is with you wherever you are –

Allah sees what you do.
Allah has what you might call an ‘intimate’ connection,

but it is not a connection because one cannot use the
word connection. He has an intimate presence with the
slave. He is with you wherever you are and Allah sees
what you do.
The one who has understood this has a different experi-

ence of existence. Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, says in
Surat al-Kahf (18:24):
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Remember your Lord when you forget.
So it is not someone forgetting the ‘Asr prayer, or just

being distracted by something in life, by things in the
dunya, it is this. When you forget that He is with you
wherever you are, and Allah sees what you do – when you
forget that, that is what you have to remember. How He
is with His creation – this is what you have to remember.
Surat al-Asr (103:2):
Truly man is in loss.
What is the loss of man? It is this. What does he forget?

He forgets that Allah is with you wherever you are and
Allah sees what you do. To finish, we remember the
great Sufi of the East, Sahl at-Tustari, radiyallahu ‘anhu,
when he took as his wird, the Wird as-Sahl:

That was the path to high Tawhid and to quick access to

fana fillah and being obliterated in the Presence of Allah.
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What we have been doing is taking steps, and each

gathering we have had is another step. This is just an in-
stalment and there is, as it were, another chapter where
we will join things that we have separated.
Hajj ‘Abdalhaqq said something earlier which I was very

pleased with in his understanding of what I had been
saying last week. He said, “The wahhabis start with
‘One’, with a Tawhid which they declare, and they end
up with two. What you are saying is that you start with
two and you end up with One.” So we are going towards
a complete understanding of Tawhid but we have to go
in stages because we are talking about the Tawhid of the
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people of the Tariqa, the people who are on the path to

‘Ilm al-laduni, to direct knowledge of Allah, subhanahu
wa ta‘ala. You cannot afford to get it wrong.
All the foundations become the instruments and tech-

nical apparatus by which the Sufis reach their goal.
They do not walk naked on their path. It is like the tawaf
– before Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, the people
used to go naked around the Ka’aba. When Rasul came,
sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, he did not abolish the tawaf
but he had people clothed and gave them honour by
being dressed, and he allowed the institution of tawaf to
continue. Islam is not culture, Islam purifies culture. In
the same way, for this knowledge that we want, you have
to be clothed in this taqwa and this birr, this path of
right action in order to arrive at the robe of honour
which is Ma‘rifatullah.
If we can continue the story as it were, we finished on

the next stage of this matter which was in Surat al-
Hadid (57:4). “It is He Who created the heavens and the
earth in six days, then established Himself firmly on the
Throne.” We will look at it again because it gives us
continuity: “It is He Who created the heavens and the
earth in six days,” and remember of course that the six
days are not a literal thing but are part of this vision of
the creation of the world where another ayat in the
Qur’an refers to a day being an enormous length of time.
“It is He Who created the heavens and the earth in six
days, then established Himself firmly on the Throne” –
then the whole cosmic reality came into being.
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It is He Who created the heavens

and the earth in six days,
then established Himself firmly on the Throne.
He knows what goes into the earth
and what comes out of it,
what comes down from heaven and what goes up into it.
Allah sees what you do.”
I shall just remind you that the significance of us looking

at this ayat is that two knowledges which Allah reveals
about Himself are put together. This is this next step that
we are taking.
At the beginning of the ayat Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala,

declares Himself the One Who created the whole cos-
mic reality but the next stage is: “He knows what goes
into the earth and what comes out of it, what comes
down from heaven and what goes up into it.” Therefore
He also has an on-going knowledge. In the continual
nature of existence Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, knows
everything that is happening. It is not the primitive idea
of a divinity that makes everything happen and then He
has done His job, astaghfirullah. Allah is explaining that
His knowledge also contains all the process of life for
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which, in another context, from the Qur’an, we take the

term ‘Rububiyya’ from the word ‘Rabb.’
Rububiyya is the Divine control over all the inter-related

aspects of existence – how the chemicals come together
to produce other chemicals, how the elements interact
with each other, how in the whole life of the forest from
the tops of the trees to the creatures at the foot of the
trees, each creature has a capacity to eat another creature
so that it can live – all these things are interconnected
and inter-related by this Rububiyya.
Now we come to the last part which is what is important

to us.

This is a new knowledge that Allah is giving us. It has

two things: it has ‘ayna ma’ which indicates place. So
Allah knows the place where it is happening, and ‘kun-
tum’, ‘you are’, which indicates time, Allah sees the time
and the place of any given human situation.
Allah sees what you do. As the mufassirin observe, Allah,

subhanahu wa ta‘ala, does not use the word ‘know’ which
He could say if the meaning were about this earlier stage,
but ‘He is with you wherever you go’ is Presence, and
Allah sees what you do. ‘Sees’ from Basir, is the verb of
eye-witnessing, and to witness you must be present.
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Basir is eye-witnessing. Therefore from this we have a

knowledge that Allah witnesses us, this is a seeing.
Now we go to Surat an-Nisa’ (4:108):
They try to conceal themselves from people,

but they cannot conceal themselves from Allah.
He is with them when they spend the night
saying things which are not pleasing to Him.
Allah encompasses everything they do.
People talk about the Qur’an as Revelation and you have

to understand that it IS a revelation! The Revelation is
not the descent of the Qur’an, it is that Allah reveals
secrets of Himself that have not been known until then.
He is telling us openly – it is a Qur’an al-Mubin, it is a
clear message. The Revelation is that Allah shows all His
secrets that He wants the human creatures to have, and
He gives it to them in this Book.
Here He says that people try to conceal themselves from

people, in other words these people are already in a
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process of hiding themselves. But the Revelation says:

“They cannot conceal themselves from Allah.” In other
words you can hide yourself from people but you cannot
hide from Allah. This is a statement of how it is. This
knowledge changes the one who has it. The one who
knows this is not the same as the one who does not
know. The ones who do not know try to conceal them-
selves from people. This is what kufr is – they cover over
what is going on but they cannot be kafir with Allah,
they are trying, but they cannot do it because Allah
knows what is happening.
Then Allah says:
He is with them when they spend the night saying things

which are not pleasing to Him.
Do you not see the reality of this? People are actually

involved in the business of scheming against Allah, sub-
hanahu wa ta‘ala, against what is pleasing to Allah. So
they are doing it as if they were in clandestine plotting
against Allah. Allah says: “He is with them,” and ‘with
them’ is Presence.
Allah encompasses everything they do.
It is not something psychic or magical, but a Presence

which encompasses the whole event of what they are
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doing. Apply this to how we get the news today. You get
the news about Iraq and the news about Afghanistan and
it is all presented to us by kuffar who are trying to
conceal themselves from people, who are spending the
night saying things that are not pleasing to Allah, but He
says: “Allah encompasses everything they do.” We have to
see it in the light of Allah’s complete command of the
situation, He knows exactly what is happening. What He
tells us is that He is with them, and that is Presence.
You have to understand that over this last century there

has been a whole false teaching of Islam, a Tawhid that
does not take into account these ayats that we are look-
ing at, as if they did not exist. They have made a Tawhid
by what Ibn al-‘Arabi says, “They have had Tanzih but
they have not had Tashbih.” They have had exaltation of
Allah above what is associated with Him without also
understanding this extraordinary reality that Allah has
openly declared in His Book about His Presence.
Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, said in a well-known

hadith, the meaning of which is: “None of you while
making Salat should spit in front of himself as Allah, the
Majestic, is before him.” From this, the great collector of
Sira, Asqalani, said, “This hadith refutes the claim of one
who confines Allah to the ‘Arsh alone. This establishes
omnipresence in every place.” This is very important be-
cause we are now getting a comprehension of Tawhid
which allows us to say that, as we have already estab-
lished, nothing can be associated with Him, He is not
dependent on anything, He is not contained in any form,
and at the same time here we have this amazing revela-
tion of His Presence in events.
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Let us look at Surat al-Waqi’a (56:83-87). What we are

finding is that each one of these ayats is giving another
dimension of this Presence of Allah, this witnessing of
Allah, this seeing of Allah of the human actions. Now
this nature of the Presence of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala,
gets more intimate, more intense.
Why then, when death reaches his throat

and you are at that moment looking on –
and We are nearer him than you, but you cannot see –
why then, if you are not subject to Our command,
do you not send it back if you are telling the truth?
Allah is nearer the dying man than the man that is at his
deathbed, but you cannot see. This is the most intense
moment – a human being at the death of another human
being, and at that moment the one who is watching the
dying man does not understand that the nearness of
Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, is nearer than his presence
next to the dying man, and he cannot see. You are always
on the edge of a Divine Presence, like that moment, for
that moment is true at every moment.
“Why then, if you are not subject to Our judgment,” to

how We have decreed it to be – ‘if you are telling the
truth’ – how the kafir sees it – ‘why do you not send back
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this command of death, this destiny of death?’ Allah has

destined him to die. It is as if Allah were saying: ‘If you,’
the kafir, ‘have this position that you claim then why do
you not send back the order: ‘Do not die!’’ In other words
you are denying the reality of the event of death thus
denying the Presence of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, in
the act of death. This is the point that you have to under-
stand. This knowledge of the Presence of Allah changes
the experience of the one who knows it.
We go to Surat Qaf (50:16). Again, we will find two

things coming together in this ayat.
We created man and We know

what his own self whispers to him.
We are nearer to him than his jugular vein.
Look how Allah is unveiling His secrets to the people.

Allah says, “We created man,” and we have already un-
derstood that Allah has connected together this enormous
physical creation and organisation of existence. Even the
kuffar, as Allah says in Surat az-Zumar (39:38):
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The Book of Tawhid
If you ask them,

‘Who created the heavens and the earth?’
they will say, ‘Allah’.
What they do not see is (Surat Qaf, 50:16):
“Wa.”
Every word in the Qur’an has meaning, every word is

important.
We created man
– it is not even ‘created’ but ‘constructed’, ‘We construc-

ted man, We put all the bits together that make up man,’
and then comes, ‘And’. You must think of creation in
terms of the child in the womb. It structurally comes bit,
by bit, by bit. The first organ to appear is the heart, then
the other organs begin to form and come together bit by
bit. This is what the ‘khalaqna’ is, it is almost ‘construc-
ted’ in modern understanding.
So: “We constructed man,” and the next bit is: “And we
know what his own self whispers to him.” The self’s
whisper is like a silent voice because it is inside the
creature. Allah is saying that the One Who created this
enormous cosmic event also knows what the self is say-
ing to itself, what you are saying to yourself. So Allah is
with you. You are accompanied by a Presence of Lord-
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ship – all the time. This is Tawhid! Now you are begin-
ning to see what the true nature of Tawhid is.
Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, goes one step further to

make the mind stop. He says:
We are nearer to him than his jugular vein.
He uses the word ‘aqrab’ for ‘nearer’ and Al-Qarib is a

name of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala. Allah has Nearness.
“We are nearer to him than his jugular vein.” The jugular
vein is what gives you life. If you cut the jugular vein you
cut the life off. “We are nearer,” and the Sufis find that
the ‘We’ is often used with direct reference to the Essence,
and what we are dealing with here is the Essence because
there cannot be Attributes without Essence.
If Allah sees, if Allah hears, it means also that His

Essence is there because He is not also divisible, He can-
not be divided. Therefore again, this is a complete con-
tradiction of the false teaching of Tawhid that has been
spread among the Muslims over the last century which is
why we are in the terrible situation that we are in now,
and it is only this knowledge which you have, which you
will take and teach, which will establish the true Qur-
’anic teaching, which is the might and power of Allah,
subhanahu wa ta‘ala, which means He is completely pre-
sent in all our actions. In that sense, as slaves of Allah, we
also know what He wants. This is how we will be able to
change things because we have a knowledge that can
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only come through the people who have Iman, who

have trust in Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala.
Now we go to Surat al-Baqara which is filled with

things of this nature. Surat al-Baqara (2:186):
If My slaves ask you about Me, I am near.
Again there is this name of Allah – ‘I am Near.’ Mu‘awiya

ibn Ja’ad said, “Once a bedouin asked Rasul, sallallahu
‘alayhi wa sallam, whether Allah was near to him so that
he could talk intimately to Allah, or whether Allah was
far so that he should shout.” Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa
sallam, remained silent for a while then this ayat was
revealed. This was the answer to the question of the
bedouin.
I answer the call of the caller when he calls on me.
Now we have been given another bit of the secret. This

nearness of Allah is not a passive thing, it is dynamic and
active. “I answer the call of the caller when he calls on
Me.” It is beautiful. The one who calls on Him, Allah
calls on him. This is the true relationship of the slave
with his Lord, a merciful Lord. It is an indication of the
mercy of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala.
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I answer the call of the caller when he calls on Me,
– meaning that the one who calls on Him, He calls on

them – so Allah calls, not His slave.
Then from this there is a conclusion:
They should therefore respond to Me and believe in Me

so that hopefully they will be rightly guided.
In other words, once this knowledge clicks into place –

and it is more than knowledge, it is an awareness of how
things are – it follows that the person should respond to
Allah. “They should therefore respond to Me and believe
in Me,” so you believe in Him, and you trust in Him
because He is the Answerer. I cannot say it is a relation-
ship because there is no relationship with Allah, but this
possible reality comes into place through the knowledge
that this is how things are. The calling makes the Iman.
Surat al-A’raf (7:7). This is another step in our under-

standing of this situation.
We will tell them about it with knowledge.

We are never absent.
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This is not a state that comes and goes, but it is constant.

This is a knowledge which underlies all understanding
of visible reality, which must be understood: Allah sees
you, Allah hears you and He is never absent.
Abu Musa al-Ash‘ari said that once, travelling with

Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, a companion started
to shout takbir, and Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam,
said, “O people, do not strain yourselves. You are not
calling on One Who is blind or deaf. You are calling on
the One Who is listening to you, seeing you and is with
you. The One you are calling on is nearer to you than
the neck of your camel.” This is Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi
wa sallam, teaching Tawhid to the Sahaba – and denied
for a hundred years by these shaytans from Arabistan.
We have seen from these ayats that Allah sees what is
happening and He hears the one who calls. You are
calling on the One Who is listening to you, seeing you
and is with you. The One you are calling on is nearer to
you than the neck of your camels.
We now connect “We are never absent” to Surat an-Nisa’

(4:126):
What is in the heavens

and in the earth belongs to Allah.
Allah encompasses all things.
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– which is the completion of what we saw in that last

ayat. Allah possesses the whole situation and Allah en-
compasses all things. Not only is He never absent, but
He encompasses everything. Surat al-An‘am (6:103):
Eyesight cannot perceive Him

but He perceives eyesight.
Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, is constantly challenging the

kuffar with the question: “On what grounds do you deny
the Unseen, and given that you deny the Unseen how are
you able to deny that you will be brought from your
graves and held to account for your actions?” Allah,
subhanahu wa ta‘ala, says in Surat Fussilat (41:54):
What! Are they in doubt

about the meeting with their Lord?
What! Does He not encompass all things?
It is like Allah has set up a contract with the human

being and Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, is saying, “Do not
deny it. How are you able to deny it?”
Allah says: “What! Are they in doubt about the meeting

with their Lord?” He uses the word ‘Rabb’ which means
‘Lord’ in His aspect as the Ruler over all the created
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creatures. “What! Are they in doubt about the meeting

with their Lord?” Qur’an is insisting that this cannot be
avoided, it cannot be doubted and if it is doubted then
you are in ignorance because this meeting with the Lord,
the encounter which happens after death is an inevitable
and inescapable part of understanding the nature of the
One Who has created the whole universe, Who is speak-
ing through Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, in the
Revelation of Qur’an.
Surat at-Talaq (65:12):
It is Allah Who created the seven heavens

and of the earth the same number,
the Command descending down through all of them
so that you might know
that Allah has power over all things,
and that Allah encompasses all things in His
knowledge.
Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, is talking about His power as

Creator not just of this earth but of the whole universe,
the seven heavens and the seven realms of earth. Then He
uses the word ‘Amr’ which is from the ‘Kun!’ – the
Command of the creation of the cosmos descends
through all the heavens and all the earth. This Amr goes
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to the furthest stars, to the furthest galaxies and

constellations, “So that you might know that Allah has
power over all things.”
The Command has come through all the creation – in

other words, part of the Command is that you are there
on the earth to receive the message of Allah, subhanahu
wa ta‘ala, and know that He is the Creator of it, and that
Allah encompasses all things in His knowledge.
Allah encompasses all things in His knowledge. He has

made the whole cosmic event in His knowledge, but in
the continuum He has created the time of the cosmos
and knows it at every instant from its beginning, in its
present, until its fulfilment. Remember the famous
question of Sayyiduna ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, radiyallahu
‘anhu, to Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam: “Are we on
a matter that is finished or are we on a matter that is just
beginning?” Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, said,
“The page is written and the ink is dry.” “Allah encom-
passes all things in His knowledge” could not be true if
He did not have a knowledge of everything to the Yawm
al-Qiyama.
Remember also that time as we understand it stops with

the creation. Again we come to the limits of thinking
because it is in the nature of the Creator to create time.
Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, said, “Do not curse
time because Allah is Time.” There are two words for
‘time’, there is ‘zaman’ and ‘dahr’. This means that Allah
is the Creator of the instantaneousness of events, not just
the measured distance of time. The measured distance of
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time will come to an end with the destruction of the

world, but the moment in which the Command takes
place is from Allah.
We now go back to Surat al-Baqara (2:115), and we are

going deeper into this unveiling of Tawhid by Allah,
subhanahu wa ta‘ala.
Both East and West belong to Allah,

so wherever you turn, the Face of Allah is there.
Allah is All-Encompassing, All-Knowing.
Let us look again at the Arabic:
Both East and West belong to Allah,
– so the directions belong to Allah.
“Fa thamma” – meaning, “right there –” and what comes

immediately after that?
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“Wajhullah”. Face of Allah. Do you see that there is no

grammar, it is the Revelation of Allah, subhanahu wa
ta‘ala? There is no gap, there is no space in it, there is
nothing added. “Wherever you turn – Face of Allah.”
Knowledge is in making a distinction about this. This

truth is so deep and so profound. There was once a famous
majdhoub and they went into the mosque and he was
prostrating here, there and everywhere and they said,
“What do you think you are doing?” He said,
“Wherever you turn, the Face of Allah is there.” He was

mad in love with Allah, going around in circles because,
“There is the Wajh of Allah.”
Look at the two aspects of this. If you go back into the

Qur’an, Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, speaks with this in-
timacy and love and concern for Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi
wa sallam, and says to him in Surat al-Baqara (2:144):
We have seen you looking up into heaven,

turning this way and that,
so We will turn you towards a direction
which will please you.
Turn your face, therefore, towards the Masjid al-Haram.
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The Book of Tawhid
Take the qibla of Makkah. So the Muslim takes a qibla

and he takes it because that is Shari‘ah. Shari‘ah is that
you take a direction. We cannot ask ‘Why?’ of Allah but
I am trying to explain how the meaning of the taking
the qibla of Makkah is the event of setting Islam above
and abrogating all other religions. Otherwise he would
have been permitted to make qibla of Jerusalem. It means
the end of Jerusalem. It is the Deen of the qibla and
Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, has given the muminun the
qibla of Makkah. That is why Ibn Taymiyya quite
rightly says, “There is no rite of ‘ibada connected to Al-
Aqsa.” None. It is not in the Deen. It has a place for us
of love and respect because of the Mi’raj, but the Deen
involves the rites of Makkah.
You are then holding in your understanding two truths.

One can only be understood in someone drunk and
intoxicated with love of Allah, who is then outside the
Shari‘ah. If a man is mad and commits a crime he is not
punished, he is locked up as insane. But the people have
to obey the Law and the Law is that they take a qibla,
which is ignorance unless you know that you take the
qibla in slavehood, in your ‘ubudiyya to Allah, subhana-
hu wa ta‘ala, because Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam,
has been given the Revelation that that is how Allah
wants us to make worship of Him. We do it, but we also
know the Face of Allah is wherever you turn.
The Wajh of Allah, according both to the mutakallimun

and the Sufis, is a way of saying the Essence of Allah.
The Face of Allah is the Essence of Allah. The face of the
person embodies, as it were, the person. Wherever you
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turn, it means that the Essence of Allah is present. This

is also a denial of those who have set Allah on the Throne
and say that He has no presence on earth. It also gives a
lie to the ones who say, because of certain ayats in the
Qur’an, that Allah has limbs and is a person. Ibn Batut-
ta’s famous observation was that he heard Ibn Taymiyya
say, astaghfirullah, “Allah descends from His Throne as I
descend from this mimbar,” which is of course a horrific
statement as far as we are concerned.
We now go to Surat al-Qasas (28:88) which we connect

to the previous ayat.
Do not call on any other god along with Allah.

There is no god but Him.
All things are passing except His Face.
Judgment belongs to Him. You will be returned to Him.
Here you have it. This is the dividing point. When

people say to you, “Dialogue with other faiths,” there is
NO other faith, because they do not know this. This is
not to be debated or discussed, this is to be obeyed. This
is a knowledge only the Muslims have and if people want
knowledge they must come into the qasr, the fortress of
the Deen.
“Do not call on any other god along with Allah. There
is no god but Him. All things are passing except His
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The Book of Tawhid
Face. Judgment belongs to Him. You will be returned to

Him.” Here is the complete contract.
All things are passing except His Face.
Everything that is in-time is passing, time is passing, all

things are passing. This Divine Reality is before, during
and after the ‘all things’ which are passing.
The Face of Allah is present, the Command – the ‘Kun’

is given, the things come into existence and by their
coming into existence things move into an in-time
sphere. From their beginning they are disintegrating and
they pass. Everything passes except His Face, and when
it is all gone – Wajh of Allah. The whole in-time move-
ment of things comes to an end – Face of Allah. So Allah
dominates and is the Reality in place and in time. Place
is under His Command and under His Presence, and time
is under His Command and under His Presence. This
connects to another knowledge which is that judgment
belongs to Him. He decides what is what. He is the
Discriminator.
Then comes the intimate, existential message, as you

would say. You will be returned to Him. In other words,
you will enter the time-process and He will be present,
you will go through the time-process and He will be
present, and at your deathbed He will be nearer than the
one near you. Then you will go into the grave and after
that you will be returned to Him. That is the journey.
That is the process.
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Surat ar-Rahman (55:26-27):
Everyone on it will pass away;

but the Face of your Lord will remain,
Master of Majesty and Generosity.
“Everyone on it will pass away”

is the reality of your life.
“There will remain the Face of your Lord.” Then it tells

us who our Lord is:
The Master of Majesty and Generosity. The One Who is the

Master of this whole situation is One of Majesty because of
the creation, and Generosity because of the creatures.
Surat Yunus (10:61):
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The Book of Tawhid
You do not engage in any matter

or recite any of the Qur’an or do any action
without Our witnessing you
while you are occupied with it.
Not even the smallest speck eludes your Lord,
either on earth or in heaven.
Nor is there anything smaller than that, or larger,
which is not in a Clear Book.
You do not engage in any matter or recite any of the

Qur’an or do any action without Him witnessing you
while you are occupied with it. This is what is happen-
ing all the time. Allah says that He is witnessing us,
while we are busy doing these things. Existence is our
‘busy doing that’. Reality is Allah watching you while
you are doing it. That was the famous Wird of Sahl at-
Tustari, the great Sufi of the East:

In case there is any doubt that Allah is generous, He
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says: “Not even the smallest speck eludes your Lord

either on earth or in heaven,” there is no atom on the
earth or in the sky but that it is known to Allah. “Nor is
there anything smaller than that, or larger, which is not
in a Clear Book.” In other words, the mithal which Allah
uses of the whole creation is this Book about which Rasul,
sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, says, “The page is written and
the ink is dry.”
This is why Muslims cannot commit suicide thinking

that they are somehow making things happen. They are
in gross defiance of the Presence of Allah, subhanahu wa
ta‘ala. They have no permission to do such a thing, they
have been ordered to worship, not to kill themselves, it is
forbidden. They already have orders which are to fear
Allah, not the enemy. It is of no use even to say that they
do not fear death, because that is not what is happening
at death as Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, has already expl-
ained: when you die, He is closer to you than the one
watching you die. This is Whom you must fear, you must
fear Allah.
Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, says: “There is not anything

in it which is not in a Clear Book,” which means from
the mumin’s point of view he says, “Alhamdulillah, we
are safe. The foundations of our existence are secure. We
are safe with Allah.” Then you live your life knowing
you are safe. This is the Yaqin which the Qur’an speaks
about in varying degrees.
Now we will look at Surat Fussilat (41:53-54). Again

Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, is challenging those ignorant
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people who do not get the point! If you do not have this
knowledge of Tawhid, you do not know what life is
about. You can only cause trouble and havoc. Allah says:
We will show them Our Signs on the horizon

and within themselves
until it is clear to them that it is the truth.
Is it not enough for your Lord
that He is a witness of everything?
What! Are they in doubt about
the meeting with their Lord?
This is reiterating the ayat we saw earlier. “We will show

them Our signs on the horizon,” meaning in the world,
“and inside themselves.” In other words, Allah will indi-
cate this matter that we have been looking at over the last
couple of hours, in your lifetime, in what is going on
out there and in what is going on in here. There will be
signs, and what are the signs? The signs are evidences of
the power of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala. What are the
evidences of the power of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala?
They are your recognising that you are dependent and
He is Independent. You are the needy and He is the One
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Who Provides. Therefore you do not need anything be-

cause He will provide for you. “We will show them Our
signs on the horizon and inside themselves until it is
clear to them that it is the truth.”
Is it not enough for your Lord that

He is a witness of everything?
This is the knowledge that matters. It is an experiential

knowledge that He is the Witness of everything. This is
the foundational reality of Tawhid. Allah, subhanahu wa
ta‘ala, then connects that to:
What! Are they in doubt

about the meeting with their Lord?
This is the dividing line between the kuffar and the mu-
minun. The muminun are those who are not in doubt
about the meeting with their Lord, and that is the evi-
dence and proof because He has given signs throughout
their lifetime on the horizon and in themselves that con-
firm it. That is what Hajj is for. It is a sign on the horizon
because when you see the muminun, you do not have a
prayer at the Ka’aba or at Mina that is not also a prayer
for the dead.
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Hajj is a sign on the horizon and there are signs in

yourself because there are things Allah puts in the heart
on Hajj that you cannot tell anybody. There are these
millions of hajjis and they all have a secret from Allah in
the Hajj. Everyone has something that happened with
them that is not the thing they tell. This is the sign on
the horizon and the sign in themselves. So they are not
in doubt about the meeting with their Lord. That
changes the person. The one who is not in doubt about
the meeting with his Lord knows: “Does He not
encompass all things?” That is what the Sufis call Hadrat
ar-Rabbani, the Presence of Lordship. The heart begins
to move in singing the Diwan, and from being solid, it
is like you become opaque and these lights begin to
come through and manifest and that is this Presence of
Allah that is with us all the time, until the heart fills up
with it and the eyes begin to fill with tears and all that is
outside on the horizon becomes mixed up with all that is
inside in the heart.
This is the beginning of the Tajalliyat, the illuminations

from the Essence of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, on the
people of dhikr. This is why we meet, this is the purpose
of what we are meeting for. This apparatus of know-
ledge becomes with us direct states of the heart and this
is what Tasawwuf is, this is what the Tariqa is. It is
because of our knowledge of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala,
and our understanding of Qur’an, that we are able to
experience these lights in the heart. Without this
knowledge you could not experience these lights in the
dhikr. Moulay al-‘Arabi ad-Darqawi said, “My ecstasy,
my drunkenness is in the discourse, not in the hadra.”
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APRIL 24 TH 2004
We now come a step further from what we were doing

at our last reunion. To recap, we will go to a couple of
ayats which will confirm what we have already seen in
the Qur’an. What we are coming to is an examination of
an important term which is ‘Tajalli.’
The proper understanding of Tawhid is the engagement

of the slave with his Lord. You cannot have a Tawhid
that does not have one who understands it. The fullness
of the meaning of this unity of Allah, subhanahu wa
ta‘ala, involves the human creature entering into this
stage of knowledge.
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We will first look at Surat ar-Ra’d (13:33):
What then of Him Who is standing over every self

seeing everything it does?
We have to recognise, whether or not it is pleasing to

these modernists and scholars who think they can decide
what the doctrines of thinking in Islam are, that the
Qur’an is Clear, it is Mubin. “What then of Him Who is
standing over every self seeing everything it does?”
Therefore Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, Who is on the
Throne, Who governs the universe is, ‘standing over
every self.’ This is an extraordinary metaphor which
means He is dominating every self and seeing every-
thing it does. This is the intellectual orientation of Iman
and the one who recognises this is established in Iman.
The question challenges the ignorant people who do not

understand the nature of existence, they are missing the
point of existence so their actions lead them and every-
one else astray. The human creature is bonded to an ob-
ligation to his Lord to an understanding that He is a wit-
ness of his acts.
Now we go to Surat al-Hadid (57:3):
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This is the famous ayat we all know and which encom-

passes everything of creation – firstness and lastness,
outwardness and inwardness, that is time and space.
Huwal-Awwalu wal-Akhiru – all the measure of time,
the in-time from its beginning to the in-time at its end.
Huwadh-Dhahiru wal-Batin – all the outsideness of
things and all the insideness of things.
Look at how Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, specifically

relates particular Attributes of His in explaining His
reality to the human creatures. “He has knowledge of all
things” – this is an Attribute of Allah, subhanahu wa
ta‘ala. So all the in-time things are in His present know-
ledge, His continuous knowledge, His absolute know-
ledge and there is nothing hidden from Him. Also, He
has knowledge of all the outward of things and all the
inward of things, and as we saw earlier He knows what
is in the breast.
This is an absolute confirmation of the reality of Allah,

subhanahu wa ta‘ala, and there is nothing excluded,
there is nothing outside of that. All of the creational
realities therefore are declaring the Presence of Allah,
subhanahu wa ta‘ala. One of the shuyukh of the East,
Al-Iraqi said, “How can love deny there is nothing in
existence except Him?” This is where the kuffar, who do
not want to face up to this, say that we equate Allah with
the universe, that Allah is the universe. But what we are
saying is that the existent things have no reality in
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themselves, therefore they are masiwallah, other-than-

Allah, therefore they are non-existent.
“How can love deny there is nothing in existence except

Him?” So the reality of existence is Allah, but again we
are stuck at a point which seems to have no exit. We
have established that existence belongs to Allah alone.
Attributes and Actions must be His also because Allah is
One in His Essence, His Attributes – seeing, knowing,
hearing, doing – and Actions must be His also because
the attributes of these faculties cannot themselves mani-
fest without an action. You cannot have seeing and
knowing and hearing and doing and speech without
action, and action belongs to Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala.
He has firstness and lastness, outsideness and insideness,

and these relations are established with the essences of
things. In other words, we have sight, we have know-
ledge, we have hearing, we have seeing – the essences of
the things, of the creatures have these faculties but we do
not have anything, we are not existent, only Allah is the
existent. These essences of the things are subsistent in
Allah’s knowledge. Our reality comes by being existent
in the knowledge of Allah. The created things are the
result of the Divine ‘kun!’ emerging from the inward to
the outward and they are other-than-Allah. All the
created things are masiwallah.
Allah’s Dhat, the Essence of Allah is not like anything, free

from the determinations of the essences of things. Allah is
not like the created creatures. We have essence, we have
attributes, we have action but He is not connected to us.
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Now we look at Surat an-Nahl (16:3). We still have to

get out of this dilemma about our non-existence and yet
our having these attributes that Allah, subhanahu wa
ta‘ala, has.
He created the heavens and the earth with truth.

He is exalted above anything they associate with Him.
You must concentrate very hard now, and you will

understand it very clearly. “He created the heavens and
the earth with truth,” ‘bil-Haqq’. Here Allah opens the
door on the very core of this understanding of Tawhid.
We have established this dilemma that we have the attri-

butes that Allah claims to be uniquely His and yet we
somehow have an in-time experience of them – we see,
we hear, we know, we judge, we act – but Allah has re-
vealed here that He has created the heavens and the earth
bil-Haqq, with the Truth. So there is not a connection,
but it is how things are that all these created forms
which have no existence in themselves, which are utterly
dependent on Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, are neverthe-
less created bil-Haqq.
Allah will open out to us now what the nature of this bil-
Haqq is, and again, without this you cannot have Tawhid.
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He is raised above anything they associate with Him.
Allah is locking us into this stage of knowledge because

we have to admit that He created the heavens and the
earth bil-Haqq and at the same time He is exalted above
the things. So it is still this impossible, apparent contra-
diction because He is exalted above everything they
associate with Allah and what can you associate with
Allah except the things, except the created existence?
Let us continue with discovering the Qur’anic ayats. We

have to go to Surat Ta Ha (20:114):
High exalted be Allah, the King, the Real!
Allah says He is exalted, He is raised above all the created

forms and He says He is the King, which means He rules
over all the created forms. Also He is Al-Haqq, the Real.
The mutakallimun have always recognised that this name
Al-Haqq is used very specially by Allah in the Qu’ran
and it relates to the Essence, the Dhat of Allah. So the
very Essence of Allah, the unknowable, the unthinkable,
that on which you cannot meditate or try to grasp – the
very core of the Divine Reality – is the Ruler Who is
exalted above everything.
Now we go back to Surat ad-Dukhan (44:39):
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We did not create them except with Haqq.
– so the created forms have been created from the very

Essence of Him Who is exalted above all the things.
Then He says,
But most of them do not know it.
– most of the human creatures do not know this. This is

also true of those Muslims who have abandoned the pro-
per teaching of Islam which has remained constant from
the beginning and has been in the hands of very respec-
ted and noble ‘ulama. It is only in the last one hundred
and fifty years that this whole understanding collapsed.
The interesting thing is that the understanding of this
highest aspect of the Deen went along with that thing
which sustained the whole of the Deen throughout the
whole of society, which is the Amr of Shari‘ah. When
the Amr was removed by which the Shari‘ah was im-
posed, then the understanding of Tawhid went. These
things are not disconnected.
Allah says:
We did not create them except with truth,

but most of them do not know it.
The loss of the Amr was the abandoning of the Tawhid.
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They could not have abandoned the Shari‘ah if they had

not lost the doctrine, the understanding of Tawhid.
Therefore the responsibility for the disappearance of the
leaders of the Muslims comes back on the common
people who had been given this knowledge and who let
it slip out of their fingers.
Now we go to Surat Yunus (10:5 and 6):
Allah did not create these things except with truth.

We make the Signs clear for people who know.
In the alternation of night and day
and what Allah has created in the heavens and the earth
there are Signs for people who have taqwa.
Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, gives another chance, another

possibility to grasp this tremendous thing that we are
moving towards understanding.
“Allah did not create these things except with truth.” We

have established this, we have understood this. After that
Allah says: “We make the Signs clear for people who
know.” ‘Sign’ is a very important word in the Qur’an
which appears throughout the Qur’an in delineating the
people of knowledge from the ignorant, that is the
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muminun from the kafirun. “We make the Signs clear

for people who know.” Remember that elsewhere Allah
says: “There are signs in your self and on the horizon.”
Therefore a sign is an indicator and these signs have been
created to give us an understanding of how existence is.
“We make the Signs clear for people who know,” and the
people who know are the people who glorify Allah, sub-
hanahu wa ta‘ala, because they have not been created
except to glorify Him, subhanahu wa ta‘ala. If they have
knowledge it is because they worship Him, if they do
not worship Him then they do not have knowledge of
Him. The matter is not one of ratiocination, it is not one
of reason, but one of seeing clearly.
Knowing is by confirmation – “We make the Signs clear

for people who know.” Then Allah indicates the sign:
In the alternation of night and day

and what Allah has created
in the heavens and the earth.
The alternation of night and day means that this planet

is moving in its orbit with a sun and a moon, and this
regulates our existence on the earth. It is measured, it has
order, everything is in its place. Our reality is based on
the continuous flow of the time-process which only
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exists because the sun is there illuminating the earth,

‘setting’ – going out of our sight, and coming back into
our sight with the day. These are signs which indicate
the purposefulness, the meaningfulness of existence in
the alternation of the night and day.
And what Allah has created in the heavens and earth.
– which therefore means that if you look out further

beyond our immediate reality on earth with the sun and
the moon, out to the stars, in all of this Allah then indi-
cates the key of this knowing – the knowing clicks into
something else. It is not knowing by the intellect, by
measuring, it is knowing these are: “Signs for people
who have taqwa.” If you realise the power of Allah,
subhanahu wa ta‘ala, you change. This taqwa is something
natural and connects to fitra. If you go to people who
have not had the word of Islam, by their fitra they are in
some way acknowledging their recognition of the
movement of the stars. The people who have examined
the ancient stone edifices of ancient peoples see that they
have connected their understanding to the knowledge of
the movement of the stars. It is an awareness of the har-
mony of the universe and this is from taqwa. Taqwa is
therefore the foundation of knowledge. The person with
taqwa is another kind of person, and this is the mumin.
We are now moving closer.
We go to Surat al-‘Ankabut (29:44):
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Allah created the heavens and the earth with truth.

There is certainly a Sign in that for the muminun.
Now it is clear. Grasping this is an important indication

that Allah has deemed necessary to mention who it is for.
It is for the muminun. The ones who know are the ones
who have taqwa and the ones who have taqwa are the
muminun, the people who have Iman in Allah, subhana-
hu wa ta‘ala. The Dhat, the Essence of Allah, is present
in both the origination of the world and in its continu-
ance. We have established that Allah is the Outward,
because, “He has created the heavens and the earth bil-
Haqq,” and this is a sign for the muminun.
Now we go to Surat an-Nur (24:25):
And they will know that Allah is the Clear Truth.
Now it is all being laid out. They will know that Allah
is the Haqq al-Mubin, the Clear Truth, the Manifest
Truth. They will know, and this is the knowledge that
He says will come to the human creature, that Allah is
manifest, clear Haqq – Essence, unknowable, exalted
above everything they associate with Him. So the Dhat
of Allah is present in the creation of the world and in the
continuance of the world.
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We stay with Surat an-Nur, ayat 35.
Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth.
We are being taken further into the secret of existence.

Further we find:
Allah guides to His Light whomever He wills.
So Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth and He

will guide to His Light whomever He wants. We have
established that Allah is One in His Acts, His Attributes
and His Essence, unalterable, and He manifests Himself
through His Attribute of light in the forms of the
created objects, which in reality are only reflected entit-
ies because they have no existence in themselves. They
are made bil-Haqq, so they are a reflection of what is
true, manifesting outwardly the essences which are in
the knowledge of Allah. So the Divine Qualities emerge
in the world of created phenomena. In other words, the
human creature has knowledge, will, seeing, hearing,
power and action reflected on him by this light from the
Essence of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, on His Throne.
Remember that things are not and cannot be created out

of nothing. “Nothing can come of nothing,” as Shake-
speare said. Equally non-being cannot manifest as the
matter of being on the form of beings, so a nothing
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cannot make things happen. Allah is above all limitation

and all individuation, and yet this happens by His Light.
Allah reveals Himself in the objects in accordance with
the essences of the things which He has created by His
knowledge. They have these characteristics of knowing,
seeing, willing, by His knowledge.
Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, has shown Himself in the

objects in accordance with the essences of the things, hid-
den in His Essence and subsisting in His Attribute of
knowledge. It is by His knowledge that He lets these
things come into being. They are brought out by His Act-
ion: “Kun!” He only has to say to a thing, “Kun!” and it is.
The khalq, the created things come into created

manifestation by the manifesting of Allah, subhanahu wa
ta‘ala, by His name Al-Khaliq. The Creator is an
Attribute of the One Who is Reality, is Essence, is Haqq,
high exalted above everything they could connect with
Him. The famous Jami said: “Essences of the creatures are
mirrors wherein Allah reflects Himself. Or, Allah’s Being
is the mirror wherein the essences reflect their forms.”
The Shaykh al-Akbar Ibn al-‘Arabi said: “Allah is your
mirror wherein you see yourself, and you are His mirror
wherein He sees His own Names and their working.”
Shaykh Ibn al-‘Arabi says, “Were He not and were we

not, what has happened would not have happened.” Thus
our existence is due to Him and His manifestation, His
Tajalli is due to us. It is due to us that this manifestation
takes place. He is the Rich, the Independent and we are
the poor, the utterly dependent.
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MAY 1ST 2004
I will just recapitulate the summing-up of the point we

got to last week. We quoted Shaykh al-Akbar Ibn al-
‘Arabi as saying: “Were He not and were we not, what
has happened would not have happened.” There he is
declaring the foundational reality in which we find our-
selves. From it we derive that our existence is due to
Him and His manifestation is due to us. Thus He is the
Rich and Independent, and we are the poor and utterly
dependent.
We summed up that Allah the Powerful, the Immutable,

without change or multiplicity, without hulul – without
embodiment in any form, or ittihad – without joining to
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anything, and without division, He manifests Himself

by what we took as a technical term, al-‘Ayan ath-Tha-
bita, by His source-forms through His Attribute of light.
The countless variety of source-forms that come into
creation do not affect the unity of Allah and His being
beyond them.
We have come to this key word which is ‘Tajalli’. It is a

Qur’anic term which means ‘manifestation’ or ‘revela-
tion’, ‘revealing of itself.’ For there to be a Tajalli from
Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, this requires a form. There
cannot be a manifestation unless it becomes manifest so
these forms are in the knowledge of Allah, but they have
no intrinsic reality. Yet things do not come out of abso-
lute nothingness, they come out of the nothing which is
the zone of His knowledge of the forms which will
manifest. We have to make this distinction.
To understand the nature of this manifesting we will

look at Surat al-A’raf (7:143):
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When Musa came into Our appointed time

and His Lord spoke to him,
he said, ‘My Lord, show me Yourself
so that I may look at You!’
He said, ‘You will not see me
but look at the mountain.
If it remains firm in its place,
then you will see Me.’
But when his Lord manifested Himself to the mountain,
He crushed it flat
and Musa fell unconscious to the ground.
When he regained consciousness he said,
‘Glory be to You! I make tawba to You
and I am the first of the muminun.’
When Musa came into Our appointed time.
Look at how Allah surrounds the whole event, how He is

the author of the event. It is an unfolding in itself of the
point at which, as it were, the fixing of the Nabawiyya of
Sayyiduna Musa takes place. ‘Our appointed time’ is
Allah’s appointment of him as a Messenger.
His Lord spoke to him
– Allah spoke to Sayyiduna Musa because this is part of

the Maqam of the Messengers, that they are spoken to by
Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala.
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He said, ‘My Lord, show me Yourself!’
What is amazing is that there are these things in the

Qur’an, and there are these ignorant, untaught ‘ulama
who have not been taught to reflect on the nature of
Tawhid, and have not been able to confront that Say-
yiduna Musa says: “My Lord, show me Yourself.” This is
what is called the Maqam al-Uns, the Station of Intim-
acy. In an intimacy with his Lord he speaks freely to
Him. You will also find in all the recounting of the
Mi’raj this intimacy with which Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi
wa sallam, speaks openly to his Lord. “My Lord, show
me Yourself so that I may look at You.” This is the
Station of Intimacy, of love. The lover wants to look on
the Face of the Beloved.
Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, says: “You will not see Me,”

and remember this in what we are coming to later – then
He takes him into the station of Ma‘rifa. He says: “But
look at the mountain.” The mountain is the most unargu-
able evidence of the khalq, of the created, it is solid rock.
“If it remains firm in its place then You will see Me.” He
has asked for this to happen and Allah, subhanahu wa
ta‘ala, orders him to look at the mountain, at the created
form.
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“But when His Lord manifested Himself,” when His

Lord made this Tajalli, which is the word we have been
looking at – “When His Lord manifested Himself to the
mountain He crushed it flat.”
This event was the illumination, the opening, the fatiha

of Sayyiduna Musa, ‘alayhi salam. What did it mean?
From the outside we can say this: the mountain was still
there but Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, had taken the form
from the mountain so that all that was left was the dust.
“Huwal-Awwalu wal-Akhiru, wadh-Dhahiru wal-Batin.”
Sayyiduna Musa realised that Allah is the Creator of the
Dhahir and that He had removed the source-form which
Allah had in His knowledge, so the thing was reduced to
dust. It did not disappear, it was not magic, but the form
was gone. He realised that all the projections of the
created universe are themselves manifestations of Allah,
subhanahu wa ta‘ala. So when Allah manifested to the
mountain He crushed it flat.
And Musa fell unconscious to the ground.
This is taken among the teachers of Tasawwuf to be an

open description of what the Sufis call ‘fana fillah’. Sayy-
iduna Musa was annihilated in this knowledge of Allah’s
revelation. Moulay al-‘Arabi ad-Darqawi said: “If the
world disappears, Allah has to appear.” Of course Allah is
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not compelled to anything, but what he meant was that

in the wisdom of how He has set up existence, if the
world disappears, Allah has to appear because He is the
Haqq. When the Tajalliyat of the solid forms vanish, then
Allah is manifest. Allah says in Surat an-Nur (24:35):
Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth.
Then Sayyiduna Musa returns to consciousness. This

next part of the ayat, in the language of the Sufis, is ‘baqa
billah’. He does not return exalted, thinking that he has
some secret knowledge. He returns completely, utterly
reduced to being the first of the muminun and he says:
“Glory be to You.” First he exalts Allah, subhanahu wa

ta‘ala, he makes tasbih. Then he makes tawba:
I make tawba to You.
He is the Messenger of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, and

he makes tawba to Allah, he asks forgiveness. He even
asks forgiveness for his adab that he should have asked
that he could have the vision of Allah.
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I am the first of the muminun.
This is the declaration of Sayyiduna Musa that he has

accepted the destiny of being the Messenger of Allah,
subhanahu wa ta‘ala. In saying, “I am the first of the
muminun,” he is saying ‘I have taken on this task you
have given me. I am the Messenger of Allah.’ All this is
in this event of this Tajalli from the Essence of Allah,
subhanahu wa ta‘ala.
We will go now to the Diwan of Shaykh Muhammad

ibn al-Habib, rahimahullah, to the qasida called The
Buraq of the Tariq. Our Shaykh says:
The Haqq can only be seen in manifestation,

whether by an angel or a mortal man.
The first manifestation of the light

is the light of Ahmad,
may the most excellent of blessings
be upon him eternally.
Now we go to the Lesser Qasida where our Shaykh says:
The Merciful is only to be seen in manifestations like

the Throne, the Footstool, the Tablet or the Lote-Tree.
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Again, what is being said in the Diwan is being echoed

from what we have found in the Qur’an. The Tajalli
comes but only allowing the creature to see that the
manifestation of the Essence is the manifestation of the
power of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, in these forms
which are the limit-forms of creational knowledge.
These two things have come together which we looked

at at the beginning and established ruthlessly as separate.
We have on the one hand this term of the mutakallimun,
of the Sufis, which is the ‘Tanzih Mutlaq’. This is abso-
lute transcendence. ‘Tanzih’ is that nothing can be asso-
ciated with Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala. At the same time
we have Tashbih, which is that there is an imminence, a
Presence of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, in manifestation.
They are created forms but as we saw earlier, “We have
created everything bil-Haqq,” they are not illusion.
Shaykh al-Akbar said very beautifully, “If you assert only

Tanzih,” which is like the wahhabis, that He is above all
and has absolutely no connection with the creation at
all, “you limit Allah.” Because you are still left with this
enormous creation. “If you assert only Tashbih,” in other
words, like the pantheists who say that Allah is in the
universe, in all the stuff, “then you define Him.” So if
you exalt Him above the creation you limit Him, and if
you declare He is in it, you define Him. “But if you
assert both, you follow the right course and you are a
leader and master in Ma‘rifa.”
The Dhat of Allah, the Essence of Allah, the Haqq, is

existent. The dhat, the essences of the created things are
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non-existent but we have established that when we say

‘non-existence’ it is a relative non-existence because no-
thing can come out of nothing. It comes out of what is
in the knowledge of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, without
diminishing or being connected to it.
Thus from the point of view of essences, otherness is

predicated from the beginning to the end. All the essen-
ces of the created things are masiwallah, other-than-
Allah. The known of Allah, from eternity, is still other-
than-Allah. They are knowledges, but they are not the
‘He-ness’ of Him. The Essence is still immutable, un-
touched. These known things are known in His know-
ledge just as, to take a metaphor, you can know about
someone somewhere and visualise them, but it does not
diminish you or add to you. There are signs in yourself
and on the horizon if you only understand. The creation
is not connected to Allah, it is utterly dependent on
Allah. Without Him it cannot be and He is independent
of everything.
From the point of view of the essences, otherness is real.

From the point of view of Existence, of Being, of the
Divine – identity is real. Surat al-Ikhlas:
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The existence of the Haqq is nothing but the existence

of the created beings. That is, the One is revealing Itself
in the forms of the essences of the created things. Other-
ness and identity. The oneness of Allah and the otherness
of all the created things. We understand with a double
knowledge this Tawhid which is One.
Shah Kamaluddin said: “To soar into the realms of

Ma‘rifa, develop the two wings of identity and other-
ness.” The created things are other-than-Allah and Allah
has identity with a knowledge that encompasses all the
created things.
We have come to four terms which will clear this up for

us. The one who sees only the phenomenal, the created
stuff, otherness, is veiled. He is called mahjoub. He who
identifies the phenomenal with the Haqq, the one who
says: “God is in the world, He is actually the world,” is an
illusionist. He is called maghzoub. He who is intoxicated
with the wine of unity, who says: “There is only Allah!”
is drunk with Allah. He is an absorbtionist absorbed in
the majesty of Allah, and is called majdhoub. But he who
distinguishes between otherness, the creation, and ident-
ity, the Creator, is loved by Him. He is mahboub.
So you have four – the mahjoub, the maghzoub, the

majdhoub and the mahboub. The first sees only other-
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ness and he is veiled, mahjoub. He is a materialist. The

one who identifies the phenomena with the haqq is a
maghzoub. The one who is intoxicated with the wine of
His unity, he is absorbed in the Divine and is an absorb-
tionist and is majdhoub. But the one who distinguishes
between otherness and identity is loved by Him and is
mahboub. These are the four states of knowledge.
The first one is kufr itself. The other two are those who
have been led astray, and the one who is on the Sirat al-
Mustaqim is the one who distinguishes between other-
ness and identity.
To see this in its clearest form we will go to Surat ar-

Rahman (55:19-21).
He has let loose the two seas, converging together,

with a barrier between them
they do not break through.
So which of your Lord’s blessings
do you both then deny?
This is the summing up of this matter. Allah, subhanahu

wa ta‘ala, has set up existence with these two seas. They
come together, but there is a barrier between them
which does not break. Allah is the Rabb and the slave is
the slave. Allah is the Creator and the creation is the
creation. Until you say these two things you do not have
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a pure Tawhid. Then Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, asks:
So which of your Lord’s blessings

do you both then deny?
Do you deny the blessings of His being exalted above

the creation, or do you deny the blessings of this enor-
mous universe that He has made for us? This is the true
understanding of Tawhid and it is embedded in this
blessed ayat of Surat ar-Rahman.
HADRA
We make du’a to Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, to make

from among this gathering of people the Awliya and
salihun who will take the message of Islam through the
whole of this continent. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa
ta‘ala, that by the people of this gathering the Deen of
Islam will stretch from the south and raise its hand up to
the north to restore Islam to the Berber and Arab people.
We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, to give a fatiha to all

the people of this gathering, and give them a fatiha for
their own ruhani knowledge and for their actions in the
world. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, to give light
and strength and inspiration to all the people gathered
here.
We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, to let love grow in
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the hearts of the fuqara. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa

ta‘ala, to make this a group of people worthy of the com-
pany of the Sahaba. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala,
to make them the Sahaba of their time. We ask Allah,
subhanahu wa ta‘ala, to raise this Tariqa up to be a light
for the whole of Africa.
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MAY 7TH 2004
We have been going step by step in an unfolding of

something. When you have assimilated all of this you
will be among the knowers of Allah, subhanahu wa
ta‘ala. You will be among the people of knowledge and
you will have entered into an understanding of Tawhid
which is the Tawhid of the elite.
There is the Tawhid of the common people, the Tawhid

of the elite, and there is the Tawhid of the elect of the
elite. You have to grasp each stage of the way we have
been going as each stage is an unfolding which will take
you to another station of understanding and knowledge.
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We were looking at how we can understand Allah the

Creator, and creation. We looked at how the things come
into being. We confirmed the oneness of Allah and at the
same time we recognised that the created things were
made bil-Haqq, by the Truth. We saw that there has to
be a double understanding of Allah as the Outward and
the Inward, and His relationship to the creation.
Now we are going to look at two terms which are, as it

were, in the courtesy of how we may talk about Allah,
subhanahu wa ta‘ala. They are called Tanzih and Tashbih,
and they are opposites.
Tanzih is exaltation. Allah is exalted above everything

that can be associated with Him. Tanzih is discon-
nection. Allah is disconnected from the forms. Tashbih is
when there are modes of speaking about Allah, subhana-
hu wa ta‘ala, which seem to imply that He has form in
the world of forms in time. We have to understand how
this is so that we have a proper understanding of it.
Everything we have done so far has been founded on the

teachings of Al-Ash‘ari. He is a kind of defence system
to prevent the rationalists and philosophers breaking
down the barriers of adab and courtesy to the under-
standing of the Divine, and to prevent the reduction of
our understanding of the Divine to a level of thought, to
ideas and philosophy.
The Sufis go further. They do not negate Al-Ash‘ari, in

fact it is necessary to understand him because he is the
one who speaks about the Acts, the Attributes and the
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Essence of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala. Now we are

going to go past that, we are going to vault over it with-
out denying it in any way, to arrive at an understanding
of these two terms which you might say are ‘connection’
and ‘disconnection’ – a way of speaking about Allah that
appears in the Qur’an which seems to connect Him to
the forms, and disconnecting Allah from the forms. We
are going to do this in such a manner that we arrive at a
knowledge of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, in which there
is no iota of association of Allah with anything.
We are going to look at Tashbih, this connection of

Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, to created forms. We go first
to Surat an-Najm (53:8-9):
Then he drew near and hung suspended.

He was two bow-lengths away
or even closer.
Here we have a statement in the Qur’an of Rasul,

sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, drawing near and being two
bow-lengths away or even closer, meaning he was two
bow-lengths away from Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala. This
statement flies in the face of all that we have been look-
ing at because first of all it implies that this nearness is
an actual, physical drawing near in this apparent prox-
imity which implies space and time.
To understand this we must look at this statement of “two

bow-lengths or even closer.” We know that the Arab
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kings in the old days would let those brought nearest to

them only approach to the length of two bows. That was
as near the subject could approach the ruler. Intellectual
proof which we have already established negates limit
and distance from Allah so we have to find out how we
are going to understand this statement.
You must know that that sect in Arabia, which has

destroyed great swathes of the Deen and great swathes of
the Muslims, has taught for some considerable time that
for them this was a physical reality. The famous Ibn
Batutta tells that he heard Ibn Taymiyya talking, astagh-
firullah, about Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, descending
from the Throne, “As I descend from this mimbar.” In
other words, they are anthropomorphists. They see the
Divine as a being and an entity, and this is what is taught
in Arabia where people are blowing everybody up incl-
uding themselves.
Let us look at this. The Qur’an is Mubin. It is a Clear

Qur’an which has been revealed in a clear Arabic. Re-
member that the Arabic language was prepared for the
Qur’an, the Qur’an was not prepared to fit into the
Arabic language. Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, prepared
the Arabic language over centuries, took it to a point of
fineness, refined it, extended it, made it more precise,
then He gave to the Quraish tribe the gift of the best
Arabic tongue. Then from the Quraish He gave to one
family the exact pronunciation so that the Rasul, sallal-
lahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, said about his family: “We have
been given the Dhad.” They are the one family who
were given the pure pronunciation of the letter Dhad.
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So the language was perfected in his family so that at the

time the Revelation came it was in this pure Arabic. So
specific is it that Allah then permitted it to stretch over
different readings so that there would be no ambiguity in
it. At the same time it would be like one diamond that
has different facets, so light would come from different
ways, so that different readings illuminate the Qur’an in
different ways, without them contradicting what was
intended in the message of the Qur’an.
Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, not only spoke it in

this perfect family Arabic, he also spoke it in what you
might call dialects, so that his followers could understand.
In Arabic there are four classes of phrase. If you look at

the books of Arabic grammar like the famous Ajrumiyya
and so on, you find for example that the great Sufi of
Morocco, Shaykh Ibn ‘Ajiba, has written a Sufic com-
mentary on the Ajrumiyya, giving a different spiritual
meaning and emphasis to every possible grammatical
construct. The language is very formal and structured
and can be appreciated in this way.
In Arabic there are four classes of phrase, of expression.

There is a ‘clear phrase’: “The sea, key, scissors.” There
are ‘indicated phrases’ which have an agreed definition:
if you say, “Man,” we all know what that means, if you
say, “Woman,” or “Bird,” we know what that means. It is
an indicated phrase which represents some genus of
which all are the same.
Then there are ‘shared phrases’ which have two mean-
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ings. For example, the word ‘ayn in Arabic means ‘eye’,

and it also means a ‘spring.’ Insan means ‘man’ and it
also means the ‘pupil of the eye.’ This particular shared
phrase is of vital importance to the way of speaking
which is used by Shaykh al-Akbar because he sees a very
important meaning in the fact that insan represents man
and it also represents the pupil of the eye. So the shared
phrase has two meanings at the same time.
Then we have the ‘synonym phrase’. For example, the

different words for lion like asad and hizaba, or for sword
like sayf and husam – different words meaning the same
thing.
In Arabic these four are defined as the four matrices.

They are to language what the hot, the cold, the wet
and the dry are to nature – they are fundamental. From
these come other expressions: the simile, the metaphor,
and transmitted phrases, phrases that are passed down.
If you take the simile, this sounds like something which is

different from the four matrices. If you say something is
“like light,” it is applied to the known. But ‘like light’ is
with the eye in revealing the sensory object which is seen.
‘Like light’ also means that the eye is able to see the thing
it sees because you cannot say, “like light” if you are not
able to see the object by the light. Then you say that know-
ledge is called light. For this process to happen you have a
knowledge, and then this knowledge is called light so it
becomes the third matrix, it becomes the shared phrase.
All phrases move towards one of these four matrices.
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‘Like light’ is a simile because in fact it moves to the

shared phrase and means two things at once. Once you
say, “This is like light,” you have given two meanings at
the same time. You cannot say, “Like light” without
saying therefore that it is illuminating and therefore it is
knowledge. So the understanding of it and the seeing of
it are not disconnected but connected. Your grasping
‘like light’ is also your recognition of something. If you
make a simile it is ‘like light’ but your knowing what is
meant by ‘like light’ is knowledge, so it is both ‘like
light’ and a knowledge which comes from this.
The ‘Arif recognises what the Divine Presence demands:

purity, disconnection and negation of likeness. These are
not veiled by reports of Allah using the tools of limitation
by time, direction and place. So the meaning – because
we know that Allah is disconnected from everything –
moves from one to the other so that we go back to the
ayat: “Then he drew near and hung suspended. He was
two bow-lengths away or even closer.” But Allah is pure,
disconnected and has no likeness.
The meaning moves from the report to the reality. It

moves from the Mulk to the Malakut, it moves from the
kingdom of forms to the Unseen. Let us be patient. A
slave-girl was brought to the Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa
sallam, and they said about her, “This slave-girl is
mushrik, she is connecting things to Allah.” Rasul said,
“Bring her to me!” And he said to the girl, “Where is
Allah?” and the slave-girl pointed to the sky. The
Messenger had better knowledge of Allah than her yet he
affirmed her belief, and Allah has better knowledge of
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Himself, disconnected from all forms.
Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, knew that “Where is

Allah?” is a question you cannot ask, and she gave an
answer which on the face of it, you cannot give. But she
pointed to the sky which is undifferentiated, it has no
form, it is just blue and Rasul said, “She is mumin.”
We go to Surat al-Mulk (67:16-17):
Do you feel secure against Him Who is in heaven

causing the earth to swallow you up
when suddenly it rocks from side to side?
Or do you feel secure against Him Who is in heaven
releasing against you a sudden squall of stones,
so that you will know how true My warning was?
Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, asked, “Where is

Allah?” and the girl pointed to heaven and he said that
her Iman was correct. In Qur’an Allah says: “Do you feel
secure against Him Who is in heaven,” which is a way
of speaking which indicates the Divine Reality. It goes
from the statement to the meaning of it and these two
are not disconnected, they are one reality in the intellect
of the ‘Arif.
Let us go to Surat Ta Ha (20:1-5):
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Ta Ha
We did not send down the Qur’an to you
to make you miserable
You could also take that as an evidence that Allah did not
send down the Qur’an for people to become Shi’a be-
cause it makes them miserable to have to believe all the
terrible things they have to believe in! So:
Ta Ha
We did not send down the Qur’an to you
to make you miserable,
but only as a reminder for those who have fear,
a Revelation from Him Who created
the earth and the high heavens,
the All-Merciful,
established firmly upon the Throne.
Now we go to Surat al-Mujadala (58:7):
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Do you not see that Allah knows

what is in the heavens and on the earth?
Three men cannot confer together secretly
without Him being the fourth of them,
or five without Him being the sixth of them,
or fewer than that or more
without Him being with them wherever they are.
Then He will inform them on the Day of Rising
of what they did.
Allah has knowledge of all things.
Again, Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, is explaining how He

is with the creatures and He is involving space and time
and presence and number, so that He is one of number –
this is Allah Who is One and nothing can be associated
with Him. Allah says: “Three men cannot confer togeth-
er secretly without Him being the fourth of them, or
five without Him being the sixth of them, or fewer than
that or more.” It is extended to say that whatever number
it is, He is able to take this condition of His knowledge
to be the truth of the matter. Thus place does not prevent
Him being in the place, and number does not prevent
Him adding to that number by His being there, and
Allah has knowledge of all things.
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We confirm that Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, created

times, places, directions, phrases, words, the one who
speaks them, and the in-time creatures who are addres-
sed. This is Allah’s creation. But the ‘Arif knows that
when the connective tools of phrase are applied to the
Real they have an aspect other than connection or re-
semblance. So the connection cannot be the affair, and
the resemblance cannot be the affair.
There is a group of people who are confronted with

these astonishing statements in the Qur’an who neither
connect, nor anthropomorphise, nor say, “This is like a
man, this is actually how it is,” and they do not put one
foot into the zone of ta’wil. Ta’wil is when you interpret
things saying, “Well, it is in a special way,” and you give
a kind of secret meaning to it. For example the rela-
tionship of the man to the ghost – you cannot use ta’wil
to deal with this matter. This group of people do not use
ta’wil, they say, “I do not know.”
A single sentence – “I do not know,” but we avoid letting

it be on Him by connection since Allah, subhanahu wa
ta‘ala, has said in Surat Ash-Shura (42:11):
Nothing is like Him.
Faced with this the ‘Arif says: “I do not know,” because,

“Nothing is like Him.” The ‘Arifin are thus free of ta’wil
because they will not make the statement into a hidden
meaning, or interpret it in a secret way, and they are free
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of tatil – the denial of Attributes. They will not deny Att-

ributes of power, that He would act and He would do if
He so wanted. This group empty their hearts of thought
and speculation and they say: “We have gained in ourselves
esteem for the Haqq. May His Majesty be exalted.”
Therefore we cannot reach Ma‘rifa by fine reflection and

investigation. At this point the elite ‘Arifin suspect the
mutakallimun, the people of teaching and intellect, and
they suspect the muhadithun who even produce texts to
back up this matter. So they have to move, they have to
travel on the path, and this is Tariqa as-Sufiyya.
They have to move otherwise they would be munafiqun,

having bad thoughts about the ‘ulama! They have to free
the heart from logical speculation. They have to sit with
Allah in dhikr on what Muhiyuddin Ibn al-‘Arabi called
the Carpet of Adab, and in muraqaba, watching their
own hearts.
Allah takes charge of our instruction by unveiling and

Ma‘rifa, and so they enter the hal of these ayats we will
now look at. Surat al-Anfal (8:29):
You who have Iman! If you have taqwa of Allah,

He will give you discrimination.
In other words, of these ayats, of this Revelation of Allah

speaking of Himself in a matter that seems to involve in-
timeness, presence, movement and so on, if you who
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have Iman have taqwa of Allah, awe and fear of Allah,

He will give discrimination.
Now we will go to Surat al-Baqara (2:281), at the end of

this long ayat:
Have taqwa of Allah and Allah will give you knowledge.
What is required for knowledge of Allah is not ratio-

cination, is not reflection, is not philosophy, is not pro-
gramme – what is necessary is to fear Allah and have
taqwa of Allah, to be careful with Allah, and “Allah will
give you knowledge.” The Arabic is so beautiful –
‘yu‘allimukum Allah’, it is like, ‘you will be knowledged’!
These ayats we are looking at are progressive: “Have

taqwa of Allah and He will give you discrimination,”
“Have taqwa of Allah and Allah will give you know-
ledge,” and now Surat Ta Ha (20:114), the very last line
of the ayat:
And say, ‘My Lord, increase me in knowledge.’
“Have taqwa of Allah and Allah will give you know-

ledge.” Now you reach that point where you become
active and you say, “My Lord, increase me in know-
ledge.” Give it to me! This is another step. You are able
to ask for it, you have not become passive, and this is
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what is called in the language of Tasawwuf, himma. You

want this thing, you are demanding it, you are insisting
on it.
My Lord, increase me in knowledge.
This is the active tense. This is the man moving into

knowledge, and entering the hal of this ayat is your du’a
to Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala.
We finish with Surat al-Kahf (18:65):
They found a slave of Ours

whom We had granted mercy from Us
and whom We had also given knowledge direct from Us.
This is to say that the mercy which was granted to the

slave was the Khatm of the destiny. Allah had decreed
that this person would be ‘Arif because it is not by your
choosing, it is by His choosing because He is the Doer.
The first thing you have to understand for this man to be
this man:
mercy from Us
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– the mercy that Allah gave to the slave was a good seal
on his destiny. He destined him for this knowledge. That
is why the du’a of the mumin is, “O Allah, give me an
Iman that is lasting,” because you want your Iman to
continue throughout your life so that, like the wine in
the bottle, it becomes richer although nothing more
enters the bottle. The bottle remains, and what is in it
slowly changes its quality becoming stronger and richer.
This is the Khatm of the destiny.
The second part of the ayat is:
And whom We had also given knowledge direct from Us.
This is the path of the people who have this pure Tanzih
of associating nothing with Allah. Surat Ash-Shura
(42:11):
Nothing is like Him, as we mentioned from Qur’an

earlier. With this you come out of the circle of the
people who say, “If He says, ‘He sat on the Throne’ then
He sat on the Throne,” which is ignorance. And you
come out from the philosophers’ position who say, “It is
a metaphor. It is as if He sat on the Throne but He did
not really sit on the Throne.”
We take the Arabic language and say No. The joined

phrase makes us see that this tells us that. There is no
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metaphor. There is structurally no such thing in Arabic

grammar as a simile, it is the joined phrase. Thus if it says
this, it is this. It is both of these things. The philosophers
say, “You must not say that He sat on the Throne because
that would be to connect Him to forms, so it is a meta-
phor and it is not real.” But it is neither of these things.
The pure Tanzih is that it cannot be approached in this

way. Imam Malik, radiyallahu ‘anhu, said, “The sitting
on the Throne is known. The way is not known, and to
question it is bida’.” In other words, it is something the
understanding of which can only be arrived at on the
Carpet of Adab in dhikr and in muraqaba. Then Allah
will unveil for you these states, and then Allah, subhana-
hu wa ta‘ala, will say to you: “Draw near.”
HADRA
We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, to confound all the

enemies of Islam. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, by
the baraka that He has given to the Du’a an-Nasiri that
within all our hearts it should be answered by the angels
in following the supplications in it.
We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, to confound and con-

fuse the enemies of Islam. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa
ta‘ala, to scatter the remnants of christianity, judaism and
buddhism and all the false religions on the earth. We ask
Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, to raise up and exalt Islam
above what the Arabs have done to it. We ask Allah,
subhanahu wa ta‘ala, to let the Arabs return to Islam by
Your Mercy.
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We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, to establish the Deen

all over the land of India and we ask Allah, subhanahu wa
ta‘ala, to confound its enemies. We ask Allah, subhanahu
wa ta‘ala, to give victory to the Muslims. We ask Allah,
subhanahu wa ta‘ala, to give the leadership of the Muslims
from among the community of the dhakirun.
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MAY 22 ND 2004
Each week we have been pursuing a path to gaining a

stronger and deeper knowledge of Tawhid. We have em-
phasised through all this that there is a dimension of this
knowledge which is in itself the reality of your fear of
Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala. “Fear Allah and He will give
you knowledge.”
It is very important that you remember during all of this

that this is something to be approached by reflection and
by inwardly achieving states and arriving at certain sta-
tions. There is the fulfilment of the true knowledge of Taw-
hid which is, in the language of the Sufis, the ‘Tajrid of
Tawhid’. This is the stripping away of your consciousness
of self before the Presence of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala.
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We are now going to look at something which may seem

a little complicated but it is not. Be patient, and just let
the first stage of it flow over you, so to speak. We are
going to look at a technical framework, and you must
understand that we are now speaking as Muslims sitting
in the mosque, talking about Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala,
and there is not anything in this that is similar to the way
we talk about objects and things in the world.
We are trying to get at an understanding of Tawhid

which also has in it this adab without which there is no
path to this understanding. It is edged in with all kinds
of conditions and inhibitions to prevent you having a
wrong kind of thinking about Allah, subhanahu wa
ta‘ala, because these are the deviations and the things
which anger Allah that are referred to in the Fatiha.
We are going to look at something in this technical

language which you must all know, because you must go
into the world with a secure Tawhid which cannot be
shaken and which cannot be swept away by modern
innovations, or by philosophy. It is not the proper
business of philosophy. This term is called ‘Tanazzulat’.
Tanazzulat is like the unfolding descent from the Essen-
ce of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, into the process by
which He makes the creation. Again, bear in mind the
detailed care with which we have confirmed that Allah is
exalted above anything associated with Him and that He
is not connected to anything, He is not dependent on
anything, He has not come from anything and no thing
has come out from Him.
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We are going to describe the amazing process which

results in our being here and results in the enormous vast
creation of the universe of which He is the sole Creator,
and exalted above it. We could say that it is something in
reality but the description does not fit it, or it is something
in description and this does not attain to the reality of it.
This descent is called the Tanazzulat as-Sita, the six-

staged descent or unfolding of these stages by which we
are able to understand the amazing reality of Allah,
Creator of the universe. Shaykh Muhiyuddin Ibn al-
‘Arabi said: “You are not going to understand Allah, but
you may reflect on the universe.” It is by your reflection
on the universe that you understand the majesty and
power of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala.
This unfolding of the power and majesty of Allah,

subhanahu wa ta‘ala, is divided into six. Three of these
ranks are utterly to do with Allah, and the other three
are to do with how Allah manifests in the creation, the
things to do with the world. The first are the ‘Murati
billahi’, the Divine Ranks, which are three. Ahadiyat,
Wahdat and Wahidiyat. These terms, which sound very
forbidding to begin with, are all part of the enormous
adab of those men who have been given the gift of
unveiling by Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, who have come
back from that illumination to speak about Allah in a
way which fills us with awe and increases our fear of
Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala.
The first stage is Ahadiyat. This represents the Essence.

The Essence is pure, disconnected from all forms and
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indeterminate. It is Allah in His unique Oneness, with

nothing associated with Him, and with vast and tremen-
dous powers hidden in this Oneness. It is also called the
‘Mist’ because someone asked the Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi
wa sallam: “Where was Allah before the creation of the
world?” which is not a correct question, but Rasul,
sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, said, “He was in the ‘Amma’,
the Mist.” In other words, it is unknowable. This is a
term which we will come to in more detail in a moment.
So Ahadiyat is the Essence. Wahdat is the Unity. These

are all ways of speaking about Allah, subhanahu wa
ta‘ala. We have not yet looked at the manifestation of the
creation. The third term is Wahidiyat which is Unity
which has in it the knowledge of plurality – Allah’s
knowledge that there can be the many myriad things.
The worldly ranks are called the Murati bil-Kawni, the

ranks of the created forms. These are three: Ruh – which
is the spirit, Mithal – which is the likenesses, the meta-
phoric capacity for form to take place, and Jism which is
the body itself. These are the six ranks and then below
this comes Insan, man.
We are going to look at this in detail. After Ahadiyat

which is Essence, you have from Wahdat to Wahidiyat
manifestation, not yet in the creation, but in Allah’s,
subhanahu wa ta‘ala, knowledge of these potentials of
His own majesty. From the ruh to the mithal, to the jism
to the insan – the spirit to the likenesses, to the body to
man – these are the external manifestations. These are
when this enormous majestic power of Allah unfolds
itself in the creation of the forms.
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We will look at Ahadiyat. Ahadiyat is the absolute Being

of Allah, unknown and unknowable. It is what Rasul,
sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, warned people not to con-
template because it could destroy them, because it is not
possible. Sayyiduna Abu Bakr as-Siddiq, radiyallahu ‘an-
hu, made the famous statement on it which is used and
referred to by all the Sufis and considered the final
statement about it: “Your incapacity to know is all that
you can know.” Shaykh Ibn al-‘Arabi said that this tre-
mendous statement was not a negative statement, it was
illumination. To know that you do not know is a kind of
knowing. This is the adab on which this matter is dealt
with.
The great Sufi, Jili said: “The Essence means the abso-
lute dropping of all modes, all adjuncts, all relations, all
aspects.” In other words, it is the Creator before one talks
of Him as the Creator. It is the Almighty in His Essence,
the Dhat of Allah which in Qur’an is the Wajh, the Face,
face being the indicator of the essence of the person.
We will look at Surat Al ‘Imran (3:28 and 30), which we

have looked at before and which we have to look at again
in order that we are correct in our adab about under-
standing the Essence of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, and
which defines the understanding we have of Allah:
Allah advises you to be afraid of Him.
This is the Qur’anic injunction which contains the same
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message. The being afraid of Allah and the being aware

of Him – you cannot go beyond this understanding of
Him, you cannot contemplate the Essence, you cannot
understand the Essence and you cannot know the Ess-
ence. At this point He is hidden, He is unknown, un-
knowable, all His power is hidden. It is the unattainable
absolute which is the Ahad of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala.
The Sufis have given this different names because they

are so anxious that it has to be preserved before they
contemplate the astonishing reality which is His
creation. The Sufis have called this the Ghayb al-
Ghuyub – the Unseen of the Unseen, and they have
called it the ‘Ayn al-Mutlaq – Absolute Essence. A very
beautiful name the Sufis of the East have given it, which
is in Hujwiri, is ‘Aynal-Kafur – the Source of Camphor.
Whatever enters into camphor becomes camphor, it has
not any otherness. This is a beautiful and poetic expres-
sion for this absolute nature of Allah. That is the first
stage of this Tanazzulat.
The second stage is Wahdat. The ‘Arif recognises that

Allah is One, knows Himself, is aware of all His poten-
tialities and that He alone exists and has the power of
manifestation. This is the first determination. The Sufis
name it Al-Haqiqat al-Muhammadiya. We will look into
this and find that this is a pure statement and does not
contain any wrong thinking, but has to be understood.
So this second unfolding of Allah’s power that we are

able to understand is called Wahdat, Unity. These are
pure potentialities of the Essence without any implied
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multiplicity. We are not talking yet about multiplicity,

about creation, we are still within an understanding of
the Divine Reality. We recognise four aspects: Wujud –
which is existence, ‘Ilm – which is knowledge, Nur –
which is light, and Shuhud – which is witnessing.
Then we are able to say: Allah exists, knows His Being,

His Attributes and His Actions. He is self-revealing and
self-manifest. He witnesses His own Being, because the
knowledge is in His witnessing of His own Being. All
this is Essence itself. Identical with it, it does not proceed
from the Essence and it is not prior to the Essence, thus
it is Essence. Therefore Essence itself is Existence, Existent,
and conscious of its existence. Essence itself is Knowledge,
the Knower and the Known. Essence itself is the Light,
the Lighter and the Lighted, and is itself Observance,
Observer and Observed. We are still not talking about
the creation but about how Allah is.
This stage of our understanding of Allah’s Essence, in

fact, contains all the Attributes of the Divine and the
worldly Names, and all the created things destined for
the creation, as the whole is included in the inwardness
of the Essence. The knowledge of it, the existence of it,
the light – and by that light that it is self-observing. The
metaphor of this is that the whole date tree is hidden in
the date stone – it is not there, but the whole tree is there.
The Sufis name this Tajalli al-Awwal – the first mani-

festation. It is the first emergence, as it were, for us to
have a sort of knowledge about Allah, subhanahu wa
ta‘ala. They call it Wujud al-Awwal, the first existence.
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Jawhar al-Awwal – the first jewel form. But the great

Sufis have named this station of the speaking about Allah,
subhanahu wa ta‘ala, “Al-Haqiqat al-Muhammadiya.”
This is because the human manifestation is above that of

the things in the creation. So he, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa
sallam, is the highest manifestation among men. Follow
this carefully to the end because it could look like some-
thing that we cannot accept, and this is not possible.
Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, said, “I am the first of
the sons of Adam,” and we also have that he is the last of
the Messengers, he is the Seal of the Messengers.
To understand this the Sufis say that the materialists say

that the function of the fruit is to produce the tree. But
the ‘Arifin say that the reality of the tree is that it is the
fruit which is intended. Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sal-
lam, is intended with the whole creation because he is
the perfect manifestation of man in his being the first of
the ones who praise Allah, and he recognises His Attri-
butes and His Power and is able to bear the Message that
is sent to him from Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala.
We have to understand that the dhat, the essence of

Muhammad, is not the Haqiqat al-Muhammadiya. The
Haqiqat al-Muhammadiya belongs to the Knower and
Allah is the Knower. The dhat of the Messenger is what
is known. The ‘abd is not the Rabb, the slave is not the
Lord. His dhat is that of the slave, but his Haqiqat, his
reality is with Allah. There is no association.
So what is called the Haqiqat al-Muhammadiya is not
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the essence of the Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam,

because this would be shirk and it would be kufr.
We go to Surat al-Ma’ida (85:17 and 18). This explains

exactly what we mean:
Those who say, ‘Allah is the Messiah,

son of Maryam,’ are kafir.
Say: ‘Who possesses any power at all over Allah
if He desires to destroy the Messiah, son of Maryam,
and his mother, and everyone else on earth?’
The kingdom of the heavens and the earth
and everything between them
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belongs to Allah.
He creates whatever He wills.
Allah has power over all things.
The jews and christians say,

‘We are Allah’s children and His loved ones.’
Say: ‘Why, then, does He punish you
for your wrong actions?
No, you are merely human beings
among those He has created.
He forgives whomever He wills
and He punishes whomever He wills.
and everything between them belongs to Allah.
He is our final destination.’
Here we have the explanation of how what is being said

does not have any shred or implication of identification,
of joining or linkage, of connection between the presence
of Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, and the Essence and
the Reality of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala.
“Those who say, ‘Allah is the Messiah, son of Maryam,’

are kafir.” So much for all these calls for the Muslims to
have ‘dialogue’ with the christians! All we need to do is
to put that in an envelope and send it to them.
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Those who say, ‘Allah is the Messiah,

son of Maryam,’ are kafir.
These are Allah’s words.
Say: ‘Who possesses any power at all over Allah

if He desires to destroy the Messiah, son of Maryam,
and his mother, and everyone else on earth?’
He creates whatever He wills.
Allah has power over all things.
The jews and christians say,

‘We are Allah’s children and His loved ones.’
Say: ‘Why, then, does He punish you
for your wrong actions?
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No, you are merely human beings

among those He has created.
He forgives whomever He wills
and He punishes whomever He wills.
He is our final destination.’
Sometimes this stage of unfolding of Allah’s majesty and

power is called Nuri Muhammadi. If we look at the
Diwan of Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib, radiyallahu
‘anhu, and the Wird which we have just recited:
“The first of the lights emanating from the oceans of the

sublimity of the Essence.” That is a reference to the Nuri
Muhammad, the Haqiqat al-Muhammadiya. It is very
important for the one who takes the journey of Ma‘rifa
to understand this aspect of the Divinity.
We will see later when we look at the Diwan where

Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib, radiyallahu ‘anhu,
gives his definition of Tawhid and defines how part of
Tawhid is contained in proper knowledge of Rasul, sal-
lallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam. Again, this is not in any way
to deify him yet to recognise his high spiritual place.
Remember the very important thing which Mawlana
Rumi said about Abu Jahl: when he looked he did not see
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the Rasul but the son of ‘Abdullah. There is a spiritual

rank which is not the property of Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi
wa sallam, but that a light has been put into him which
gives him the rank so that he said, “I am the first of the
sons of Adam.” He does not say that he is not one of the
sons of Adam. Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, reminds us in
Surat Al ‘Imran, referring to the Prophet’s future death
(3:144-145):
Muhammad is only a Messenger

and he has been preceded by other Messengers.
If he were to die or be killed,
would you turn on your heels?
Those who turn on their heels
do not harm Allah in any way.
Allah will recompense the thankful.
No self can die except with Allah’s permission,
at a predetermined time.
So Allah’s confirmation of this is the absolute impos-

sibility for the Muslims to think about Rasul, sallallahu
‘alayhi wa sallam, in that way. At the same time, in this
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modern age, we have had a denigration of Rasul, sallal-

lahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, and a bringing-down from his
high position as the first of the sons of Adam and the
Seal of the Messengers – by Egyptian scholars and the
shayateen from Arabia who have been like Abu Jahl and
have tried to say that he is merely the son of his father.
Without any shirk, without any kufr and without any

crossing of this line that we will never, never cross, you
have to recognise the high position which the Rasul,
sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, has and the high position he
has been given by Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, in the ayat
of the Salat an-Nabiy (Surat al-Ahzab 56):
Allah and His angels call down blessings on the Prophet.

You who have Iman! call down blessings on him
and ask for complete peace and safety for him.
To go back to this confirmation of Allah being exalted

above everything, every form and every human being,
Dhun-Nun al-Misri speaks of the Essence in this way:
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Knowledge of the Essence of the Haqq – ignorance.

Definition of the reality of Ma‘rifa – bewilderment.
Indication by an indicator – shirk.
You cannot even make an ishara on this matter! Shirk.

The line is drawn and the mouths are silent.
The poets of the Sufis use the Anqa’, which is a mytho-

logical bird, to speak about the Essence, and one of them
said, “Do not try to catch the Anqa’, you will only be
able to catch air.” This is the knowledge of the Essence
of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala. Inshallah we will continue
with these six terms having done the first two of the
three Divine ranks. Then we will move to the three
worldly ranks, inshallah.
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MAY 29 TH 2004
We have been looking at the ‘Tanazzulat as-Sita’. These

stages are not in time or preceding the other, or follow-
ing the other, but they are only in description. They are
understood in their detail by the ‘Arifin and they are also
understood by the mutakallimun because they follow in
a logical pattern what one may say about Allah, sub-
hanahu wa ta‘ala, with correct adab.
This Tanazzulat as-Sita is divided into three Murati bil-

lahi, Divine ranks, and then the next three are the
Murati bil-Kawni, the worldly ranks. In other words, the
first three are what you can say about Allah, subhanahu
wa ta‘ala – their different aspects of Essence. We talked
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about Ahadiyat which is Essence – pure, disconnected

from any forms and indeterminate, having no specificity
of any kind. Then we came on Wahdat, which is unity
and it is between Ahadiyat and Wahidiyat.
Wahdat is called in the language of the Sufis, Nuri Mu-

hammadi, and is more generally called the Haqiqat al-
Muhammadiya. Remember that we pointed out that this
is not the essence of the Messenger, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa
sallam, which is different from his Haqiqat because the
Messenger is a human being and cannot be associated in
any way with the Divine as he is ordered to explain in
the Qur’an itself.
Another name of this is the Tajalli al-Awwal, the first

manifestation. Or Wujudi al-Awwal, the first existence,
or the Jawhar al-Awwal, the first jewel. All this is within
the Essence of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala.
After Wahdat, which is like a barzakh between Ahadiyat

and Wahidiyat, we come to Wahidiyat. When the ‘Arif
reflects on the Dhat of Allah, of Allah possessing know-
ledge in detail – its Names, Attributes and source-forms
with all the distinctions and aspects – this is called
Wahidiyat. Now we can talk about Allah, subhanahu wa
ta‘ala, as possessing knowledge in detail in Himself, and
His Names and Attributes and source-forms of all those
knowledges which allow all the myriad forms in the
universe to unfold and become manifest on the com-
mand of the ‘Kun’. This is called Wahidiyat. So Ahadiyat
is absoluteness in itself, and Wahidiyat is that with all its
details.
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Ahadiyat is absolute, Wahdat is implicit – that is why it is

called the barzakh al-Kubra, the great divide in how we
can understand Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, and Wahidiyat
is explicit. It is Allah in His supremacy with all His Attri-
butes and Names known to Himself and all His know-
ledge by which He will unfold, as He desires, the whole
vast creation of the universe. These are three Divine
Names but they are suppositional names, they are not act-
ual, they have no reality – they are for us to understand.
Ahadiyat, Dhat, Essence without conditions. Ahadiyat is

Surat al-Ikhlas:

The Ahad is Ahadiyat. Secondly Wahdat, the barzakh.

This is unity but with potentiality. It is potential to have
this vast unfolding of forms but still not determined, it is
still not specified what Allah’s unfolding will be.
Thirdly Wahidiyat, we would call the emergence of the

Names. All this is within Allah’s Divine Reality, not in the
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universe, not in the world of forms. It is the potential of

His majesty – the emergence of the Names and the Attri-
butes and what we called earlier the ‘ayan ath-thabita, the
source-forms. In other words, the form of the creature is
in the knowledge of Allah, or the thing as He wishes it to
be, before it is realised. Metaphorically it is the potter with
the image of the pot before the pot is thrown, but there is
no connection and the metaphor cannot be extended
because Allah has no outsideness or insideness, or nearness
or farness from His objects. Yet it is a metaphor of how
the forms have to exist in His knowledge before they
manifest and become the known to us.
For this we look at Surat al-Baqara (2:163):
Your God is One God. There is no god but Him,

the All-Merciful, the Most Merciful.
Now we have the Ahad unfolding His Attributes. “Your

God is One God. There is no god but Him,” nothing is
associated with Him so He is not connected to the world
of forms, He is not connected to His creation in any way
whatsoever. He is exalted above it, and He is “the All-
Merciful, the Most Merciful.” He has Rahman and He
has Rahim. These are His Attributes, these are His quali-
ties, this is Him showing Himself for what He is as the
Lord of the Universe.
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Here we have Essence and Attributes. Allah is One. This

is the Ahadiyat which we have been looking at. “There is
no god but Him,” so the Wahdat, which we have said is
everything in potential and is the Nuri Muhammad, still
does not allow anything in that stage to be connected to
Him. “The All-Merciful, the Most Merciful.” Then He
shows the splendour of His Attributes and the two dom-
inant Attributes of His qualities are the Rahman and the
Rahim which is why of course all but one of the surats
of Qur’an begins with: “Bismillahi ar-Rahmani ar-
Rahim.” Bismillah – in the name of Allah, the Ahad, and
the Rahman and the Rahim. In other words Qur’an puts
Allah’s Unity with His Attributes throughout.
This does not mean that there was Absolute which then
became latent with powers and potentials and then be-
came Existent. You must understand this because we are
not saying that. This is a description for your clarity, and
it is confirmed by the ‘Arifin in their vision and their
knowledge. It is a description which has not got time in
it. It is not that He was this and then He was that. He is
One, immutable and unchangeable always.
Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, was asked, “Where

was Allah before the creation?” and he replied, “Before
the creation of the world, Allah was and there was
nothing with Him.” Imam Junayd confirmed this and
made commentary on it by saying, “Is as He was.”
The Names indicate the Essence along with its Attri-

butes. In other words, when you are given the Attribute
ar-Rahman, this is Allah, this is the Essence manifesting
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Attribute. You cannot have the Attribute without the

Essence so: Allahu Ahad, Allahu Samad. The Essence
goes with the Name.
Shaykh al-Akbar tells of a Wali who was asked how he

achieved his Ma‘rifa and he replied, “By joining the
opposite Attributes. The One Who Exalts and the One
Who Brings Low.” Also, Al-Awwalu wal-Akhiru, wadh-
Dhahiru wal-Batin. So he joined these opposites because
they are One, Allah is One, until he achieved his fana’.
With Wahidiyat emerge the four mother Attributes and

they are: Hayy, ‘Ilm, Irada and Qudra – life, knowledge,
will and power. From these come all the Attributes of
the hearing, the seeing and so on. From Allah as Al-
‘Alim comes the knowledge of the source-forms, the
‘ayan ath-thabita. He knows that from this is the know-
ledge by which He knows how all the things will have
form. Remember that we are saying that Allah is One in
His Essence and in His Attributes and in His Acts be-
cause the form is not a static thing. Everything in the
creation is alive. According to the Sufis, all the apparent-
ly inanimate things are also alive. This was something
that they said from the time of Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi
wa sallam, but it was only confirmed by the scientists
with nuclear science. The apparently dead matter was in
fact moving enormously fast and was in motion and
alive. This has always been the position of people of
vision in Tasawwuf.
So from Al-‘Alim comes the knowledge of the source-

form. What we are saying is that the source-form is not
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a form in a static sense because for a living creature you

cannot separate its form from its actions. The obvious
example is a dog. The dog is not just a creature with four
legs and a tail and a head – the essence of dog is that he
hunts, he attaches to man and is loyal to man, he can
turn on man, he is a guard, he is not clean – that is dog.
So dog cannot be separated from dogness. Just as that is
the case, so when we come to man. Allah creates the
form of the man and also the history of the man, thus the
whole man from the beginning of his coming into
existence in the world until his death has been created by
Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala. Thus he will behave accord-
ing to his form, he has no choice.
What the ignorant people call freedom is not what we

understand by freedom. What we understand by com-
plete freedom is complete ‘ubudiyya, complete slave-
hood, because if you are completely the slave of Allah,
subhanahu wa ta‘ala, then you are liberated because you
will move by Him, you will speak by Him, and so your
actions will be by Him and pleasing to Him.
Shaykh Ibn al-‘Arabi said about these source-forms, the

‘ayan ath-thabita: “They never smell the odour of exist-
ence.” You must understand that the forms on which
things come into being have not got any existence. They
are in the knowledge of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala.
Then by the Command, ‘Kun’, He brings them into
existence where they are not the ‘ayan ath-thabita but the
forms themselves. These ‘ayan ath-thabita have no
external existence, they are only subsistent in Knowledge.
Every essence of a thing has a distinguishing nature or
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characteristic to distinguish it from other apparently

similar forms.
In other words, each being is made on a particular form.

That is why all of us are of the same genus but every
single one of us is completely different. The finger-print
is different, the hand-print is different, the eye – every-
thing of each person is made on that particular form of
Allah’s Command. Thus the Attributes of Al-‘Alim have
endless possibilities. This is the form of the created
beings, and we look for this in Surat al-Isra (17:84). This
is a command on the Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam,
therefore it is a direct education of the muminun:
The translation is, “Say: ‘Each man acts according to his

nature,” but I am not satisfied with the translation of ‘na-
ture’ because actually ‘shakilat’ is the ‘form’, the thing we
have been talking about. So each man acts according to his
‘ayn ath-thabita, to this form he had in the knowledge of
Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, before he was ordered into
existence by the Divine Command that brings things to
life. And then:
But your Lord knows best –
So here Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, speaks of Himself

using the term Rabb. Very often in the Qur’an when the
term Rabb is used, it is indicating Allah in His capacity,
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in that aspect of His Essence which manifests through

the Attributes to make things happen in the world of
forms in the created universe.
But your Lord knows best who is best guided on the path.
Allah knows best who is best guided on the path because

the man has been made in that form that will put him on
the path. This takes you to the wall of knowledge about
the seal of the destiny. You cannot go beyond that
knowledge because it is a knowledge that brings you to
a complete halt. In other words, when you, by your
choices, decide from inside the form that you have to do
what you do, it reveals at that moment that Allah has
chosen you to be mumin. Therefore you both choose to
be mumin but also Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, because
of His fore-knowledge and because of the nature of His
design, had designed you to be mumin.
Beyond that you cannot go because your responsibility

is not taken away. If you did not have a responsibility for
the acts there would not have been the need for Prophets,
for Qur’an, for the Books. You have an absolute respon-
sibility before Allah for the destiny, and at the same time
you are in fact acting out what He has designed you for.
What knowledge is, what wisdom is, is that the mumin

wants to do what is pleasing to Allah because if He does
what is pleasing to Allah it is because Allah has destined
him to be one of those people who is pleasing to Him.
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When you do act in a way that is pleasing to Allah you

are not claiming, “I have done this, look! I have done
what is pleasing to Allah,” but, “He has put me on this
path.” The shakilat takes us to this knowledge.
The Tanazzulat then descends into its three worldly ranks

which are ruh, mithal and jism. These in turn, in des-
cription only, take us to insan, to man. Again, these
descents are not in space or time but are a way of under-
standing this incredible unfolding of the Divine Reality.
In terms of the creation, when these Attributes have
ordered into being the universe, and when the Throne of
Allah has been set out in all its splendour, and the hea-
vens have been created, and then the creatures have been
created and the Khalif of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, has
been appointed, which is man, then you have ruh, mithal
and jism. This is the spirit, mithal and body.
Mithal is that because certain things are like certain

things you are able to understand these spiritual matters.
You cannot understand them by reason, you cannot un-
derstand them except by glimpsing the likeness: “This is
like that.” You cannot say, “It is that,” then, “Ah, you
mean so and so,” as if it were a real example. A mithal is
not an example but a picture of something that makes it
clear for you. This is a necessary dimension of the world-
ly condition.
If you are not able to interpret mithal then it is as though

you are not a complete human being. To give you an
example: in the medical profession, the psychiatrists’ test
that someone is insane, therefore not a full human being,
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is that they ask them a question like, “What does it mean

if ‘people in glass-houses should not throw stones’?” If
the answer is, “Well, if you are in a glass house and you
throw a stone you will break the window,” then he is
mad. If he is able to say, “It means you should not accuse
the other when you are in the same situation,” that
means he understands the mithal.
If you cannot translate the mithal it is a sign of insanity

because normal reason is actually based on something
that is not reasonable, but is a faculty of the imagination
to understand the situation the human being is in.
I will now take this exactly from Shaykh Muhiyuddin

Ibn al-‘Arabi’s ‘Fusus al-Hikam’, ‘The Seals of Wisdom’,
because it is so clear and so beautiful. He explains the
position of man in the universe:
“When Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, willed (He is

using His Attribute of Will which is one of the
Mother Attributes) that the source of His most
beautiful Names, which are beyond enumer-
ation, be seen, or you can equally say that He
willed His source to be seen,”
– because if He wished that the source of His Attributes

be seen, as the Attributes and the Essence are one, it
meant that He wanted somehow to declare out His own
Essence –
“He willed that they be seen in a microcosmic

being which contained the entire Command,
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having been endowed with existence, and throu-

gh which His secret was manifested to Him.”
He willed that the source of His most beautiful Names

be seen in a microcosmic being which contained the
entire Command, the entire universe, because every
aspect of the universe is in man. Man is the microcosm
of the macrocosm. He is the focal point of the whole
thing, he is the end result, he is what is intended by the
creation.
“He willed that they be seen in a microcosmic

being which contained the entire command,
having been endowed with existence, and thr-
ough which His secret was manifested to Him,”
for His delight. “For the vision that a thing has
of itself through itself is not like a vision of itself
in something else which acts like a mirror for it,
so He manifests Himself to Himself in a form
which is bestowed by the place in which He is
seen. He would not appear thus without the
existence of this place and His Tajalli to Himself
in it.
“Allah brought the entire universe into existence

with the existence of a form fashioned without
ruh, like an unpolished mirror. It is a matter of
the Divine decree that He does not fashion a
place but that it must receive the Divine ruh
which is described as being ‘blown into it’ in
Qur’an. This is none other than the obtaining of
the predisposition of that fashioned form to re-
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ceive the overflowing, the perpetual Tajalli which

has never ceased and which will never cease.”
So he is saying that it was through man that Allah was

able to see and contemplate Himself through the crea-
tion of this creature, but He has to blow the ruh into this
creature so that the unpolished mirror could become
polished and have light.
“Then we must speak of the container. The con-

tainer proceeds from none other than His most
sacredly pure overflowing.”
He is saying that the created creature, man, comes from

the most sacred Essence of Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala,
and yet he is now, in the universe, the creature with a ruh.
“So the whole affair has its beginning from Allah

and its end is to Him and the whole affair will
return to Him as it began from Him. Thus the
command decreed the polishing of the mirror of
the universe, and Adam was the very polishing of
that mirror, and the ruh of that form.
“Tajalli only comes from the Essence by means

of the forms of predisposition of the one to
whom the Tajalli is made,” in other words, the
container. The Tajalli from the Essence only
comes because man has been created for this. He
is predisposed to receive this event. “The one
who receives the Tajalli will only see his own
form in the mirror of the Real, and he will not
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see the Real for it is not possible to see Him.”
Sayyiduna Musa, ‘alayhi salam, said, “I want to see You,”

and Allah said, “You cannot see Me but look at the
mountain,” and the mountain crumbled to pieces and he
then received this Divine knowledge by his own fana’.
“At the same time he knows that he sees only his

own form in it. It is like the mirror in the visible
world – inasmuch as you see forms in it, or your
own form, you do not see the mirror.” If you
look at the mirror you do not see the mirror, you
see yourself. “At the same time you know that
you see the forms or your form only by virtue of
the mirror. Allah manifests this as a mithal,” this
is an essential part of the human creature,
“appropriate to the Tajalli of His Essence, so that
the one receiving the Tajalli knows that he does
not see Him.”
Thus when Allah manifests to him he does not see Him,

he sees himself. “Man ‘arafa nafsahu fa qad ‘arafa
Rabbah.” He who knows himself knows his Lord.
“There is no mithal nearer and more appropriate

to vision and Tajalli than this, so try in yourself
when you see the form in the mirror to see the
body of the mirror as well – you will never do it.
If you wish to taste of this, then experience the
limit beyond which there is no higher limit
possible in respect to the creature. Neither as-
pire, nor tire yourself in going beyond this
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degree for in principle there is only pure non-

existence after it. Allah is then your mirror in
which you see yourself, and you are His mirror
in which He sees His Names.”
This returns us to our primary understanding of the

difference between the Divine Essence and the essences
of created things. We look at the Diwan of Shaykh Mu-
hammad ibn al-Habib, radiyallahu ‘anhu, in the qasida
‘Withdrawal from all that is other-than-Allah’:
My ruh speaks to me and says,

“My Haqiqat is the Light of Allah,
so look to no-one except Him.
If I were not a light I would be other-than-Him.

Indeed otherness is nothingness
so do not be content with it.
If you look with the eye of your Secret,” the inner eye,
“you will not find a trace of other-than-Allah
in either earth or heaven.
But the illusion of other-than-Him hides Him.

So combat your desires if you wish to see Him.”
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In other words, rise above this nafs that insists on the

reality of things and does not realise the secret which is
that if you look with the eye of your Secret you will not
find anything that is other-than-Allah.
Thus from the stand-point of created forms everything is

masiwallah. From the point of view of the forms brou-
ght into existence everything is other-than-Allah. But
from the inward aspect, all things are His from before-
time and after it. “If I were not a light I would be other-
than-Him. Otherness is nothingness so do not be con-
tent with it. If you look with the eye of your Secret you
will not find a trace of other-than-Allah in either earth
or heaven.”
We will now look at Surat an-Nahl (16:96) for the final

clarification of this matter, confirming what I have said.
This ayat is astonishing:
What is with you runs out,

but what is with Allah goes on forever.
There is an in-time aspect of you which runs out and

then that is it, finished and gone. But in the secret, what
is with Allah goes on forever. The reality is that the
Essence is present so you are in the knowledge of Allah.
You have come into the creation and He is the Knower,
and then when you are finished you return to Him, there
is the Judgment Day and all the unfolding of the secrets
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of the Malakut. You go from the Mulk to the Malakut to

the Jabarut to the meeting with the Essence because you
have been known to Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, before
the creation of the world.
In Qur’an we know very well the ayat where Allah

orders all of mankind before the creation of the world in
the Essence – in His knowledge, the ‘Alim – and says to
them, in Surat al-A‘raf (7:172):
Am I not your Lord?
and all the human creatures say,
We testify that indeed You are!
Then Allah, by the Command, puts them into the world

in their time and in their place, and Allah says in Surat
al-‘Ankabut (29:2):
Do people imagine that they will be left to say,

‘We have iman,’ and will not be tested?
179
The Book of Tawhid
So they are tested and you see who are this and you see
who are that. You see who are the muminun and you see
who are the kafirun, and you see in between who are the
munafiqun. Then they will be gathered to Allah, sub-
hanahu wa ta‘ala.
“What is with you runs out but what is with Allah goes
on forever.” “What is with you runs out,” ends with the
washing of the body and the funeral prayer. “What is
with Allah goes on forever,” is the fulfilment of the
meaning of the life when the form of the life has been
returned to its Owner in the earth and the phosphates
have gone to the phosphates and the potassium has gone
to the potassium and the minerals have returned to the
earth. Then what is with Allah goes on forever, some for
the Fire and some for the Garden. Allah, subhanahu wa
ta‘ala, says: “I send some to the Fire and I do not care, I
send some to the Garden and I do not care,” because this
is part of the Divine unfolding of the Essence of Allah,
subhanahu wa ta‘ala, and this is the reality of the Haqq
and this is the One Whom we worship and we associate
nothing with Him.
Fatiha.
180
REFLECTION
from the Diwan of Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib
181
The Book of Tawhid
Reflect upon the beauty of the way in which both the

land and sea are made, and contemplate the Attributes of
Allah outwardly and secretly.
The greatest evidence of the limitless perfections of

Allah can be found both deep within the self and on the
distant horizon.
If you were to reflect on physical bodies and their mar-

vellous forms and how they are arranged with great pre-
cision, like a string of pearls,
And if you were to reflect on the secrets of the tongue

and its capacity for speech, and how it articulates and
conveys what you conceal in your breast,
And if you were to reflect on the secrets of all the limbs

and how easily they are subject to the heart’s command,
And if you were to reflect on how the hearts are moved

to obey Allah and how at other times they move darkly
to disobedience,
And if you were to reflect on the earth and the diversity

of its plants and the great varieties of smooth and rugged
land in it,
And if you were to reflect on the secrets of the oceans

and all their fish, and their endless waves held back by an
unconquerable barrier,
And if you were to reflect on the secrets of the many
182
IX
winds and how they bring the mist, fog and clouds
which release the rain,
And if you were to reflect on all the secrets of the hea-

vens – the Throne and the Footstool and the spirit sent
by the Command –
Then you would accept the reality of Tawhid with all

your being, and you would turn away from illusions,
uncertainty and otherness,
And you would say, “My God, You are my desire, my

goal and my impregnable fortress against evil, injustice
and deceit.
You are the One I hope will provide for all my needs,
and You are the One Who rescues us from all evil and
wickedness.
You are the Compassionate, the One Who answers all

who call on You. And you are the One Who enriches
the poverty of the faqir.
It is to You, O Exalted, that I have raised all my request,

so swiftly bring me the Opening, the rescue and the
secret, O my God.”
By the rank of the one in whom we hope on the day of

distress and grief – that terrible day when people come
to the Place of Gathering –
May Allah’s blessings by upon him as long as there is an
183
The Book of Tawhid
‘Arif who reflects on the lights of His Essence in every

manifestation,
And upon his family and Companions and everyone

who follows his excellent Sunna in all its prohibitions
and commands.
HADRA
We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, to keep us in the

company of the ‘Arifin. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa
ta‘ala, to let the people of this dhikr spread out through
the whole of Africa and take the Deen to all of Africa.
We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, to give to Africa the
Deen of Islam that has been rejected by the Arabs. We
ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, to give baraka to the
people of this room.
We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala, to make the people

of this room people of baraka, people of wisdom and
people of teaching. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala,
to give benefit to all the people who see the fuqara and
meet the fuqara so that they love them and respect them.
184

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THE BOOK

SHAYKH DR. ‘ABDALQADIR AS-SUFI

English meanings: from the Emirates-approved

Due to the interregnum, soon, inshallah, to be brought

define us as belonging to “Sunni Islam”, as if accepting

Today the kuffar have despaired of overcoming your deen.

Another result of this is, that in treating the Imam as an

It was in that spirit that we decided to hold a series of

reviving this Madinan ‘Amal, it was only fitting that we

So it was that in these nine gatherings, each one of the

One could add a further result to this matter. It is pre-

Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi

We will Look at Surat al-Ahzab (33:34-35).

And remember the Signs of Allah

Men and women who are Muslims,

Regarding “Men and women who remember Allah

Men and women who remember Allah much:

Here we have the statement that is the defining ayat of

And remember the Signs of Allah

So Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, mentions the worship that

And remember the Signs of Allah

“Buyut” here has been translated as “rooms”, and that is

The translation is: “In houses which Allah has permitted to

Now Allah specifies the spiritual, ruhani qualities of

Men and women who are Muslims,

men and women who fast,

So Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, has meant that for these

The Arabic word for reward is ‘ajra’. This word comes

Now we look at Surat al-‘Ankabut (29:45):

Recite what has been revealed to you of the Book

Recite what has been revealed to you of the Book

So the first order is the recitation of Qur’an. Allah, sub-

Salat precludes indecency and wrongdoing.

Having established that, Allah then puts another level on

established the recitation of Qur’an which leads to the

And remembrance of Allah is greater still.

So the highest aspect of this is that you are now another

Allah knows what you do.

The dynamic of this superior being, the Muslim – that is

Allah is with me, Allah sees me,

This is what made him have direct experience, ‘Ilm al-

Now we go to Surat al-Baqara (2:152):

Remember Me – I will remember you.

This ayat is an ayat ‘adhim because this is a very high

I will remember you.

It has exactly the same construct but is like a mirror

because beyond that you cannot say. But Allah, subhana-

Let us look now at Surat al-Muzzammil (73:8-9):

Remember the Name of your Lord,

This is the command. This is what runs through the

I only created jinn and man to worship Me.

Remember the Name of your Lord,

Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, says: “Devote yourself to

…those who remember Allah, standing,

This means that in every situation you remember Allah.

…not distracted by trade or commerce

So trading, doing business, does not distract you from

If you look at the Diwan of Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-

In the name of Allah, All-Merciful, Most Merciful