An-nafs wa Maqam Matiha al-Amarra

The Nafs that Orders to Evil

The First Station

            The nafs that orders to evil, its walking, its world, its place, its state, its attributes, its ugly qualities, and how to be free from it and rise to the second station where it acquires the quality of al-lawamma, the state of the nafs that is self-reproaching.

            The walking of the nafs al-amarra is toward Allah, its world is the world of the seeing; its place is in truth; its state is attraction (wa-raiiduha); and its source of inspiration is the shari’a.

Know that the seven nafs are one, and it is named differently according to its attributes which are the inciting to evil (al-amarra), the reproachful (al-lawamma), the inspired (al- mulhama), the arrested (al-mutma’inna), the pleased (ar-radiyya), the pleasing (al-mardiyya), and the perfect or complete (an-nafs al-kamala).

Know that the nafs is the heart about which Allah says, “This is a reminder for whoever has a heart.” What is indicated by the word “heart” is not a piece of flesh, but is a subtlety established by the Lord which may lean toward the physical body and which may become established in following its appetites.  By this I mean the animal spirit which loses its preferred qualities and takes on lowly qualities.  It becomes like the animals, and the shaitan becomes one of its soldiers.  Some of its qualities are ignorance, greed, arrogance, anger, appetite, hatred, forgetfulness, envy, hurting others with the hand and the tongue, and other ugly qualities.  All this is an evil nafs.  The Prophet Yusuf, speaking about this, said, “Surely the nafs commands to evil.”

The Messenger of Allah, may the blessings and peace of Allah be upon him, said, “Your greatest enemy is your self that is between your two sides.”  This is because the nafs inhabits the darkness of the physical world.  It does not distinguish between truth (al-haqq) and force (battle); it does not distinguish between goodness and evil.  The accursed shaitan cannot influence humanity except through its venue.  So, O seeker, be aware of it.  Do not trust it.  Do not help it. Do not support it; on the contrary, stop it.  Cut down on your food, on your drink, and on your sleep that you may weaken the animal nafs that grow on satisfying its appetites.  If you weaken it, then you are closer to release from it.

Let your dhikr in this station be la ilaha illa’llah while extending the laa and emphasize the iil in ilaha and emphasize illa’llah. (NO God BUT Allah)  LAA IILaha ILL Allah, LAA IILaha ILL Allah, LAA IILaha ILL Allah. And do not be lazy in emphasizing the IIL of illa; LAA IILaha ILL Allah,  because if you do not, then the ii turns into a ya sound, and this is not the word of at-tawhid and there is no benefit in its repetition.  Most of the people who do dhikr are not aware of this point.  Do this dhikr standing, sitting and on your side at all times out loud.  The effect of this dhikr is only felt after much loud repetition in the nighttime and in the daytime.

Allah says in Hadith Qudsi, “La ilaha illa’llah is My fortress, whoever enters My fortress is safe from My punishment.  And the Messenger of Allah said, “La ilaha illa’llah is the best of adh-dhikr and the best of good action.  Those most likely to receive my intercession are the ones who say it purely from their hearts.” There is no slave who says it before he dies except that he enters the garden (al-janna), even if he commits adultery and even if he steals, Allah says in Hadith Qudsi, “I am in the good opinion of My slave.  I am with him if he remembers Me.  If he remembers Me in a place, I remember him in a better place.”

The Messenger of Allah, may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him, said, “When people sit in the remembrance of Allah, they are surrounded by angels and they are covered with mercy and they receive al-sakina, which is the peace inspired by Allah, and Allah mentions them in His assembly.

And the Messenger of Allah, may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him, said, “If you pass by the gardens of heaven, then graze there.”  And it was asked, “And what are the gardens of heaven?” He answered, “The gatherings of adh-dhikr.”

So, O you who seek freedom from your enemies, enter the fortress of your Lord, which is to repeat la ilaha illa’llah.  Release your noble self from the prison of the body so that you may arrive at the higher stations.  Know that the seeker continues with this adh-dhikr until it brings him to His presence. The seeker continues this adh-dhikr without much pleasure in its meaning until the dark veils are lifted from his heart, and he is able to witness with inner sight that all movement and stillness, all giving and withholding, and benefit and harm are from Allah.   This becomes a tasting which is a witnessing from the state, not just from belief.

This witnessing through tasting is only known to those who taste.  Its outward signs are that you no longer hate any creature, and you do not cause harm to a believer, an unbeliever, an animal, or to your enemy.  When you say la ilaha, release from your heart anything that you worship other than Allah, and when you say illa’llah, say it with strength and in a state of presence and awe.  Close your eyes and listen to what you say.  Be in a state of purity and beware of what you eat.   All ugly qualities arise from a full stomach, even in the stomach that is full of halal food; so how much worse if it is full of haram food.

Polish the mirror of your heart and remove the rust that stops you from perceiving the realities of things and from understanding the finer points.  Know that your mirror in this station is very rusted with the rust of arrogance, envy, hatred, appetite, greed, resentment, and other qualities that you know in yourself.  It is very important in this station to clean yourself from these impurities that stop the heart from piercing the unseen.  Do this by strong dhikr, and by reducing your food and sleep, so that you tighten the roads the shaitan travels in you.

Know that this station in which the nafsi is called the amarra is a prison and is the lowest of the low.  So it is important to be freed from it.  The raising of the voice is important to awaken the nafs from its habitual forgetfulness.  So do adh-dhikr strongly, stand with the shari’a, take your nafs into account every hour, put fear into your nafs with the thought of death and the punishment of the grave and the other difficulties it will have to cross.

Know that in this station you go through two states of fear and hope.   When you are done with this station, your fear turns into constriction and your hope turns into expansion.  Then your state of constriction turns into a state of awe and the state of expansion turns into a feeling of being home, a feeling of familiarity.  If you reach to a degree of perfection, then constriction is experienced as al-jalal and expansion is experienced as al-jamal.  In this first station you always need to remember the reason for fear because this is more useful to you than holding on to hope.  But if fear becomes extensive or extreme and you become desperate, then you need to remember the reasons for hope, such as the mercy of Allah, His forgiveness, and His nobility.

You need to be in a constant state of humility and surrender.  Plead to Allah and ask Him to release you from this station through His gentleness and generosity, and increase your dua, your prayers to Allah.  Do not ever tire of pleading to Allah.  Do not ever say to yourself that Allah does not accept your prayer because this will cut you off from the Haqq.

            The Prophet, may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him, said, “Supplication is worship.”  And Allah, Glory be to Him, says, “Call upon Me, I will respond to you.  Those who are too arrogant to plead  with Me will enter the Hell-fire.”  And the Messenger of Allah, may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him said, “Supplication is the matter of worship.” And he said, “Nothing stops the decree except supplication, and supplication protects you from harm.”   Whoever wants Allah to answer his call in hard times, “Let him plead to Allah in easy times.”

Know that no one turns to Allah in supplication without receiving what he asks for sooner or later.  See the generosity of your Lord – how He makes your supplication affect His order.  See how generous Allah is, that He gets upset if He is not asked.  So how can you turn your back to the One who has opened many doors of generosity to you?  And how can you turn to His enemies, the shaitan, the dunya, and the appetites?

Know that you have been made with a predisposition to the best and that you made for al-khalifa and to hold the highest authority.  Remember that your father (Adam) was the Qibla for the angels; remember that He taught him the names; remember that he was the vice-regent of Allah on His earth.

So my beloved, awake from your forgetfulness that has destroyed you, put you in a lowly position, and demeaned you, and turn toward what you absolutely need, and draw near through good action before you are taken to His presence in chains.

He said to you, “My slave, if you draw near to Me by a handspan’s length, I draw near to you an arm’s length; and if you draw near to Me by an arm’s length, then I draw near to you by a leg’s length; and if you come to Me walking, I come to you running.”

So abandon hesitation, and leave what preoccupies you and distracts you from your Lord.  Help yourself by being satisfied with what you have, whether it be much or little, and leave alone the vanishing pleasures.  Be preoccupied with what helps you.  And do not delay your repentance and drawing near to Allah because you do not know how much time you have left in this dunya.

The Messenger of Allah said, “Leave the dunya to its people.  If anyone takes from the dunya any more than he needs, he is hurting himself without realizing it.”

My beloved, when you are in this station that is tight and ugly, pray for freedom from the constrictions of the nafs to enter into the expanse of the soul (al-ruh).  Pray that you should let go of all the ugly qualities I have mentioned, and take on the beautiful qualities that please your Lord.  And know that if you are busy with releasing yourself from every ugly quality and changing it to every beautiful quality, then you will see what is amazing, and you will reveal the hidden secrets, and you will understand the following saying:

Your cure is in you,

But you do not see,

Your sickness is from you,

But you do not feel,

You allege that you are a small star,

While you contain the whole cosmos.

 

An-nafs al-Lawamma

The Reproachful Nafs

The Second Station

This is the study of the nafs al-lawamma, showing its walking, its world, its place, its states, its source of guidance, its attributes, and the course of treatment to be released from it.

The walking of the nafs al-lawamma is to Allah; its world is the world of al-barzakh; its place is the heart; its state is love; its source or leader is the way (at-tariqa); its attributes are: reproachfulness, arrogance, self-satisfaction, abandonment of the company of people because of an objection to creation, hidden pride, the love of appetites, and the love of a high position.

The nafs still has a trace of the attributes of the nafs al-amarra, but it has the discrimination of knowing the truth and seeing falsity as false.  It knows that these attributes are ugly but is not free of them.  It has a desire to struggle and to be compliant with the shari’a.  It has good action in prayer, fasting, and charity, but these good acts are mixed with pride.  The person in this station, even though he hides his good actions, likes to be praised for them and cannot totally remove this desire from his heart.

The Messenger of Allah said, “All people except those who know will perish, and all those who know except men of deeds will perish, and all men of deeds except the sincere will perish.”  Then he added, “And all the sincere ones are in grave danger.”

This is because the sincere ones still want others to know of their sincerity, and this is the hidden pride.  These people perform their good actions for people and not for Allah, and this is a hidden sin.  Know that if you have these attributes, you are in the second station and know that your nafs are reproachful (al-lawamma), and that it is a dangerous station for the reasons we have explained.

So if you say that this contradicts the saying of the Prophet, “Had the mu’minin entered the tunnel (al-juhr), Allah would have sent someone to harm him,” and his saying, “The dunya is the prison of the mu’min,” I would say to you that these hadith relate to the people who have some fear (awe) of Allah, except that they have not freed themselves from the impurities of the nafs, and so they are not free from the toil of the dunya.  For that reason Allah has promised them reward in the Hereafter (al-akhira).  As for those very few who are drawn near, by what would they be hurt or imprisoned?  The nearest ones reach the seventh state avoiding this state of danger.  Salvation from danger comes by vanishing.  They enter into the presence of Allah Who grants them His grace.  This is the difference between the righteous and the nearest, between the toil of the former and the comfort of the latter.  To illustrate their condition, we say they are like a tree whose branches bear poisonous fruit.  The righteous begin to remove the fruit and the branches, whereas the nearest work to uproot the tree altogether.  So, it is the nearest whose work is fruitful.  They seek the fana’ in themselves and survival in their Lord.

So my beloved, if you wish to be one of them, to be free of all pain and to have rest at all times, then walk their way and continue to walk from station to station until you arrive at the seventh station, which is al-nafs al-kamala.  There you will see what will amaze you.  At every station you will see what pleases you and what inspires you to keep walking and to ascend the stations through the struggle (al-mujahada) with the nafs.  You will busy yourself with the names.  In every station there is a particular name devoted to that maqam, and the busier you are with your Lord and His attributes, the closer you get.

If you become lazy, you have only yourself to blame.  You need to engage in the struggle with the nafs, and to leave your old habits, which are so many that they cannot be counted, but the path has well established principles.  You need to acquire at least six of them: reducing food, reducing sleep, reducing talk, keeping away from sin, engaging in adh-dhikr, and reflection.

These six practices are more important than anything else.  If the seeker engages in them with sincerity, they help him to leave old habits.  But what is required in these practices is a middle way between excess and lack.  So it is said to reduce your food; it is not said to stop eating.  Do not eat unless you are hungry and do not eat until you are full.  It is useful to leave the habit of eating a required lunch and dinner.  The Messenger of Allah said, “We are a people who do not eat unless we are hungry, and if we eat we do not fill up.”  He also said, “There is nothing worse that is filled by humans than the filling of the stomach.  And if you need to put something into it, then know that one third is for food, one third is for drink, and one third is for breath (air).”  The seeker takes on this practice to turn his nafs toward the Haqq.  But he needs to give himself rest because changes in temperament corrupt states and stations.  For example, if the seeker feels sick, then he needs to relax in his struggle with his nafs and engage himself in taking care of his temperament.  After returning to health, he can re-engage in his struggle with his nafs, but with caution.

In this second maqam, you engage in adh-dhikr of Allah.  Do  remembrance in abundance – standing, sitting, and on your side, in the night, in the day, and at specified times when you sit facing the Qibla.  Repeat the name with strength and with raising your voice, and do not tilt yourself to the right or to the left.  Put a stress on the first A, and make the ah quiet, and elongate the name – ALLLah, and do not do it fast.  Know that in this station, you have many thoughts, many whisperings, and many ideas, especially if you do the dhikr with a middle voice.  If you do it with a strong voice then the thoughts will be quieter.

This name is a fire that burns all thoughts and whisperings.  Be concerned to preoccupy yourself with the dhikr, and do not pay attention to the thoughts.  You cannot quickly free yourself from all thoughts because the mirror of your heart is still facing creation.  Your heart is full of the pictures of creation concerned with actions, beauties, ugliness, and movement.  These pictures cannot be removed until you turn your back to all of the creation.  Then there is no trace of all the pictures of creation and you do not hear their words.  As long as you do not disengage, you will find these thoughts and whisperings in your heart, and they will trouble you.  Know that creation will veil you from the truth.  If you are truly thirsty for arrival, then leave creation alone and say, “I am traveling to my Lord Who will guide me.”

Know that this path is a serious path and a path of struggle.  Whoever is serious and struggles will achieve everything that he desires and more.  Whoever is lazy and negligent will have no arrival because of the many obstacles.  The greatest obstacles are relying on creation, leaning toward it, and sitting with others.  Whoever does not cut off these obstacles does not have arrival because what is sought is contrary to what the people of adh-dunya are engaged in with their words and in their hearts.  So if you wish to reach the highest station, leave creation completely and forget everything that is an obstacle to you, and busy yourself with your Lord.  Then you will become familiar with the Haqq  and you will see what amazes you, Allah willing.

If you do not follow these instructions, you will spend your time in toil and tiredness and will not reach your desire.  So be serious in removing all traces of the nafs al-amarra whenever it manifests pride, envy, enmity, and bad opinion of the creation.  You cannot be free of all these things unless you avoid the dunya and cut yourself off from it outwardly and inwardly.  In this maqam you are not bound to the order to command to good and to prohibit evil, because this command can only be exercised with gentleness and modesty, and in this station you do not possess these qualities.

The Messenger of Allah said, “Whoever commands to good, let him command with goodness,” meaning gentleness.  At this stage the most important thing is to release yourself from destruction and to purify your heart from the evils that obstruct your walking and prevent you from witnessing the Haqq.  Because the heart is the place of seeing the Haqq, the purification of the heart becomes obligatory and necessary.  Let your prayer be, “O Disposer of Hearts, turn my heart to Your obedience.” It is good to say this prayer at sunrise and sunset.  Ask Allah to turn your heart from forgetfulness to remembrance, from laughter to weeping, from fear to security, and from contraction to expansion.  The summation of all these prayers is to ask to be put on the straight path.

In this station you will understand the secret of the Prophet’s saying, “The hearts of the slaves are between the two fingers of the Merciful.”  Allah is the Provider.  He alone can make you oblivious to the pain of struggle, and He can increase your desire to walk the path, and He can make you shun everything other than Allah.  This is possible if you do what you have just been told.  If you do not, you will feel the tiredness and toil.

If you think that you have received the secret of these words without struggle, then know that this is a false claim from the nafs because the nafs always make claims of perfection and completion.  Know that completion in only witnessed after struggle with the nafs.  So struggle with your nafs and reveal the hidden jewels.  Do not be deceived by the claims of your tongue.  Whoever claims to have what he does not have will be put to the test.  So test your nafs; do not believe your nafs.  Be the one who takes the nafs into account every time your nafs do what is contrary to the tariqa.  So refute the nafs and inform your shaykh.  Do not conceal any of its ugly qualities from him because whenever you receive the secrets from this tariqa, you will benefit.

You need to be watchful of any traces of arrogance, confusion, and making false claims.  Be sincere and truthful in your seeking and in your struggle with the nafs (al-mujahada), and in this way perceive the wonders and the secrets of the heart.  This is the doorway to the imaginal world (al-mithal), which is a world different from the one you are in now.  This world is only known to those in the station of the heart, which is at the end of the second station (an-nafs al-lawamma).

This is the first station (an-nafs al-lawamma) of those who are brought or drawn near.  The traveler (as-salik) begins to perceive what cannot be perceived by the five senses.  This is because the heart of the believer is the throne of Allah and the house of Allah, meaning that it is the place where the secrets of Allah are kept.  So follow the shari’a which is al-Qur’an and al-hadith of the Prophet, may the blessings and peace of Allah be upon him.  Take on the qualities of the tariqa, which are the actions of the Prophet – extreme hunger, little sleep, and silence.  If the Messenger of Allah spoke, he only spoke of good things.  He was silent much of the time.  He laughed little.  So follow his form and his states and act on them.  If you do this, springs of wisdom will gush forth from your heart expressing themselves by your tongue.  You will be a traveler walking the path of those who are near, which will confirm your traveling to the presence of al-Jabbar.

                One of the first stopping places on this journey in the world of the mithal  is your encounter with celestial bodies, which are pictures or forms, midway between the coarseness of the body and the subtlety of the spirit.  What you see will strengthen your himma for traveling, increase your yearning, kindle the fire of the love in your heart, and cut you off from all appetites, desires, and passions of the nafs.  But know that entrance into the world of al-mithal is only for the travelers (as-salik).  It is a state called the inevitable event (al-waqi’a), intermediate between wakefulness and sleep.  It is important that you are aware of this place and time, and that you know of the existence of this intermediary space.  If you do not have an awareness of this state, then your sleep is only sleep and is of no consequence.

In the beginning the travelers are overcome by sleep.  Later they are more wakeful, so that when they see spiritual bodies, they think they see them in a waking state.  In reality they see them in this inner space.  It is in this state that Jibra’il came to the companions of the Prophet in the form of an Arab carrying the spirit of the Prophet.

It is important to purify the nafs and the heart.  The sign that the heart has been purified is its receptivity to inspiration and divine knowledge, and its agreement with the Qur’an and the sunnah.  Evidence for the purification of the nafs comes when it is free from anger, envy, pride, and hatred of some parts while inclined toward other parts of creation.  The right state is when all creation is equal in your sight; to love everyone, but not so excessively that it cuts you off from the Haqq, nor to hate anyone inwardly so that it occupies you from the remembrance of the Haqq.  It is important in this station for the salik to cut off his appetite for food and clothing.   If you see that you have a preference for some foods and not for others, or you have a preference in what you wear, then you need to struggle with your self to avoid excess and negligence by these two worldly goods.  This is the first step toward the nafs al-kamala because the perfection (al-kamala) is not arrived at unless you wean yourself from the appetite for food and clothing.   If you find that you still have these appetites, know that you are not on the path toward the Haqq, the path of those who are brought near.  If this claim to be on the path is made while these appetites persist, know that this is the claim of the shaitan.  Those who do not stop these habits will fall into them and stop traveling. If you want arrival, then disconnect from everything that stops you from reaching your Beloved.  Avoid everything other than Allah.  Do not sit with anyone, even if he claims to be al-Khidr, if you see him preoccupied with creation in his actions and if you do not see him engaged in the actions of the people of traveling, which is the only way to reach Allah.

Know that the heart has a side facing the outward world which is under the governance of the five senses, and it does not know anything of this outside world except through these senses.  The heart also has a side facing the unseen world which is the world of the malakut. Whenever you turn toward the seen world with your five senses, you turn away from the unseen world.  When you cut off your five senses, you turn toward the unseen world.  In the beginning you cannot be turned to both sides at the same time.  Whenever you turn toward one side, the other becomes absent, and there is a big difference between the two worlds.  The seen world is extremely far away from the presence of the Haqq.  If the heart turns to the seen world and leaves the unseen world, it becomes like an animal.  This is why a person becomes captive to his appetites, to anger, to  engaging in sleep, and in what does not concern him, and in argumentation and confrontation without concern for the ending of this affairs.  But if turns to the unseen world by following the orders, leaving the prohibited, leaving everything that does not concern him, leaving excess talk, excess sleep and excess eating, then he takes on the angelic attributes.   Anger and appetite come under his command, and he becomes an insan al-kamal worthy of the trust.

Know that anger and appetites are like rust.  Just as a mirror cannot receive images if it is covered with darkness, the ruh cannot receive the tajalli if it is covered with anger and appetite, unless these two qualities are governed by the directives of the shari’a.

The deficiencies of the nafs are many.  Only the sincere among the travelers can walk through them.  This is through al-mujahada, through seeking the aid of Allah in opposing the shaitan and the resistance of humankind and the jinn.  Everyone in existence seeks to stop the traveler from reaching his Lord out of envy and jealousy, because they know that whoever crosses this path is given sovereignty over them!

Know that envy only hurts the one who exercises it.  The traveler should not pay any attention to envy, to those who are envious, nor fear envy.  This is possible when the traveler knows that Allah is closer to him than anything else, and knows that he does not move a foot except by the will and the power of Allah.  He hold onto the knowledge that Allah knows everything in the heavens and on earth, and that Allah has a greater mercy toward him than any mother is capable of having for her child.  Only good comes from Allah; evil is only in the outward of things.  If you were to look inward, you would know that everything is good.  What is called evil is simply what does not agree or accord with the nature of people.  Goodness is connected to the great essence, which is perceived only through the cleaning of the heart, which becomes a witnessing through tasting.

If you know this, then you know four things:  there is nothing that can oppose the power of Allah; Allah had knowledge of everything; Allah is very tender and the Most Merciful; and all actions of Allah are good.

Whoever knows these matters is not afraid of the plottings of the envious and has no fear of people or of shaitan.  So, O traveler, hold onto these four knowings, comtemplate their meanings, be truthful in your turning to Allah, and do not turn to anything that does not concern you.  When you truly know that Allah has power over everything, this increases your himma in turning to Him, in your prayer to Him and in your confidence in His answering you.  Any petition that is made in this state is never denied.

As for your realization that He has knowledge of everything, that He is gentle and merciful, and that all His actions are good, these are the qualities or the knowledge that establishes you in the station of reliance on Allah, acceptance of Allah, yearning for Allah, love of Allah, and other such stations and states, and that help you in your ascension to the third maqam, which is called the secure and inspired station (al-maqam al-mulhama).   From that you ascend to the complete rest and satisfaction station (an-nafs ar-radiyya), then to the well-pleasing station (an nafs al-mardiyya), and then to the perfect station (an nafs al-kamala).

Know that it is a custom of Allah that the precondition for ascension from the second to the third station happens only at the hand of the gnostic traveler who has knowledge of the stations and the states of the way.  Allah does break with customs.  It is possible that one can ascend if he has understanding and intelligence, especially if he studies the teachings in the books.  Then Allah will give him the helping hand of one of the knowers.  Progression from the third to the fourth maqam can only happen with the perfect traveler, who is not necessarily the perfect gnostic. You do not say about anyone that he is the perfect traveler unless he has perfected the fourth station where the nafs is called al-mutma’inna.  I say that progression to the fourth station is only possible with the perfect one (al-kamala) because the third station is one of the most difficult and one of the most dangerous stations.  It combines both good and evil, benefit and harm.  It is easy to confuse the Haqq with what is false and disbelief with realization, except for those whose worship and whose following of the shari’a has become customary, who have a noble disposition of the nafs, who are generous, who are correct in their perception of the revelation, and who see the truth as truth and falsity as false.  It will become clear to you how dangerous this third maqam is.

As for the ascension from the fourth to the fifth and then on to the sixth and seventh, except for a few, the traveler does not need the hand of the guide because when Allah lights up the light in the heart from the light of the Perfected One, then the traveler sees all the perfections, and all he needs is the himma to reach them.  He does not need the guide so much.  Now you know that the fourth station is al-kamil even though it is of the lower rank of perfection.

 

An-Nafs al-Mulhama

The Station of the Inspired Nafs

The Third Station

                 The inspired nafs: its walking, world, place, conditions, source, and qualities as well as the remedy to walk through it and be elevated to the fourth station.

                Its walking is helped by Allah. This means that the traveler in this station sees only Allah, and this is because the reality of his faith it sin his inward, and in the outward he annihilates everything other than Allah in his witnessing.

Its world is the world of spirits; its place is the spirit; its state is deep love; its source is gnosis; its qualities are generosity, acceptance of what is, knowledge, modesty, patience, gentleness, and the capacity to withstand pain, to forgive people, to encourage people into concordance, and to witness that Allah has everything in His grasp.  So an-nafs al-mulhama has no objection to any of Allah’s creation.  Also among the qualities in this station are yearning, weeping, agitation, withdrawing from creation, being busy with the Haqq, constantly under the turning of contraction and expansion, fearlessness, hope, the love of beautiful sounds, the love of dhikr, happiness with Allah, and speaking with wisdom, gnosis, and witnessing. These are the descriptions of the nafs al-mulhama.  It is called this because Allah inspired it to know its weak and strong sides, to know what is good for it and what is harmful to it.

This maqam is very dangerous and very difficult.  The seeker or the traveler requires someone to help him leave the darkness of ambivalence and enter into the light of the tajalli.  He needs this help because in this station he is weak, he does not distinguish between jamal and jalal, and he does not distinguish between what comes through the angel and what comes through the shaitan, as he is not totally free of his humanity.  It is feared for him in this station that if he forgets himself he will descend to the lowest of the low, by which I mean the first station, which is the station called the one inciting to evil.   If this happens, he returns to his old habit regarding eating, drinking, sleeping, and mixing a lot with creation.  His belief may be corrupted by leaving his obligations, taking on prohibitions, claiming that he is in the state of unity, and claiming that he has revelation (al-kashf) from Allah.  He may look at the people of obedience and say, “They are simply veiled from this witnessing.”  If his belief system is corrupted, he will be destroyed along with the others, and he will become one of the unbelivers (al-kufr), or the mushrikin, those who associate with Allah.  The fire of the physical aspect will ignite one more time and burn up any traces of faith.  He will lose all his efforts.  He will gain nothing.  On the contrary, he becomes a shaitan who is lost and makes others lose their way.  He will have imaginings of the shaitan which he will think are tajalli from the Rahman.  This can all happen after he has succeeded in pulverizing much of his humanity, strengthening his spirituality, clearing many of the veils in his heart, being close to success, with little left to continue his walk to enter into the presence of the King.  He may have drawn very close to the unity and become strong in his struggling against his nafs.  This calamity may ensue when he is very close to the station of the maqam of perfection, because here he loses all sense of fear, which in the earlier stations kept him from acts of disobedience and encouraged him to take on acts of obedience.  When they lose their fear there are very few who still hold on to the shari’a.  So, O seeker, follow your shaykh even if your nafs start telling you that you are more advanced than your shaykh and that you are in the state of unity, while your shaykh is still veiled.  You need to follow the shari’a and you need to hold onto al-adab.

So, O seeker of completion, let go of any traces of the nafs.  Do not let what appear to you to be states of unity causes you to turn back and be cut off.   Continue to tear the veils of light and ask for the presence of the unity.  Do not pay attention to the manifestation of celestial lights because this is a veil that stops you from reaching the essence.  If you do, this will cause you to return to the station of the animals.  So keep the practices that got you to this point, and this will help you to remove more veils.  Continue staying up at night, continue with hunger, continue with seclusion, continue to speak little, and hold onto the coattails of your shaykh, if your shaykh is one of the complete ones.  Keep telling him what comes into your mind whether it is beautiful or ugly.  To the extent that you continue your trust in your shaykh, this will increase your attraction to the holy world and this will weaken your humanity.  It is very possible in this station that you start to believe that you know better than your shaykh.  This will only cut you off from his help.  So let go of this thought and know that your shaykh is complete and is a Muhammad Inheritor.  Enter under his protection and be convinced that your freedom is in his hands.  Be in his hands like the dead with the washer.  Do not object to any of his states.  If you find yourself objecting, then let him know and make your repentance to him.

If it has not been given to you to keep the company of the complete one, then treat yourself by following the shari’a and the practice of reading the wirds that were given to us by the prophets, peace and blessings be upon them.  Increase your salaams on the Prophet, increase your asking for forgiveness, and generally increase your dhikr.  Keep the company of holy people and keep the company of those who are seeking what you seek.  Keep the company of those who have made their migration to Allah.

In summary, this third station combines both good and evil.  If you find that you have more good than evil, then you are able to walk through the higher stations, but if the evil is greater than the good, then you will descend to the lowest of the low.  If you find this then you need to put your self down and not give your self any credence.  You know that your goodness is greater than your evil if you find in your inward a lot of evidence of the faith that emanates from the reality, if you see that your outward is in accordance with the Islamic shari’a, if your inward carries the certainty that everything that is in existence is under the will of Allah and held by His power, and if your outward is busy fulfilling the orders of Allah avoiding the grave sins and most of the smaller ones.

The sign of more evil than good is that while there is a strong witness of the reality in the inward, his outward is not in accordance with the shari’a.  He leaves his obligations, and it would not be strange if he committed every sin.  This is because of the effect of witnessing the reality which makes him believe that all his actions are in accordance with what Allah wills.  The lights of the haqiqa veil him from the secrets of the shari’a.  The effect of this is that he is discharged from the presence (al-hadra) which combines the two opposites.  The end result is that he will lose his dunya and his religion (al-din).  His evil overtakes his good, he becomes an unbeliever, and he does not attach himself to any religion.  At this point it is hard to distinguish between him and an animal.

But if you leave everything that is not pleasing to Allah, you will be given insight and every good, because then you will see with the eye of Allah, you will hear with the ear of Allah, you will become a gnostic by Allah, walking in Allah or by Allah.  In this spiritual station you will have the subtleties, you will be close to completion,  you will be close to arrival, most veils will be removed from you, especially the darker or coarser ones, and you will have let go of most of the appetites of the nafs because this maqam is for the spirit.  Even though there is still some veiling, the veils here are from the light, and its appetite is acceptable, because the appetite here is to see the Haqq, to seek witnessing, and to seek arrival, and this is because love has overtaken it.

In this station you are one of the people in love, overtaken by love, who have no patience with being separated from their Beloved.  In this station, let go of the mixing with creation.  So that you may not be concerned with them, you have to stay away from them by Allah.

Know that many claim this love but few are truthful.  The truthful ones are the ones who have nothing in their hearts except their Beloved.  They forget all of creation.  What people do never comes to their minds.  They do not mention the dunya.  They are not concerned with dunya.   People may see such a person and say that he is mad, but they are not aware of his elevated and strong state.  Know my beloved, that the condition for any lover is to be totally in obedience to his Beloved.

 

You disobey your God and you claim His love;

This is indeed very strange!

If your love were true, you would have obeyed Him;

Surely the lover is totally obedient to his Beloved.

Beware of slipping.  Do not understand by the expression “to remove all restraint” that it means to leave the orders of the shari’a.  This is what those who are misguided think.  These are the people who have not left the world of humanity.  They have no knowledge of the haqiqa, nor the following of the shari’a.  They leave salaat and fasting; they follow their appetites; they make every ugly action; and they go into bars.  And yet they claim they are in the unity, that they are lovers of the Haqq, that what they are doing is simply an example of having no restraints, and that they are not obligated by the shari’a.  Beware, murid, O seeker, that you are not overtaken by the shaitan in this witnessing.  Know that the restraints that you need to remove are of the nafs and evil passion.  What is meant is that you should be in concordance with the shari’a, which discourages your having a high station in the world of creation.  You should do everything to belittle yourself with creation.  You may do things like carrying your shopping on your back or carrying the bread on your head.  The reactions to these things vary.  For some these actions may look abased; to others they make look more esteemed.  So you need to take on the actions that make you look small.  You do them, trusting your affairs to Allah.  If you do good, you you do good to yourself, and if you do evil, you do it against yourself.

Do not do what is contrary to the shari’a as a means of belittling yourself in the eyes of people, such as drinking wine or doing anything else that is haram.  This is a ploy of the shaitan that will cut you off from higher aspirations.  Everything that is haram causes blackness in the heart.  Whenever the heart is darkened, the way things are seen is contrary to the reality.  If you are sincere in seeking what demeans you and belittles you in the eyes of people, then do those things that are allowed by the shari’a.  There are many things that are useful in this way, yet are still halal.  If you take on the haram, this will only harm all the good work you have done so far.  What I mean is that you should take on things that do not undermine all your good work.  Do things that benefit you and help you on your way to arrival.  The means of removing restraint that is acceptable by the shari’a and helps you on your way to meet your Beloved are many.  For example: Wearing fancy clothes may be a reason impeding your walking because you need to expend much energy to be able to afford them.  This takes up time that you could be using in your walking to your Beloved.

Know, my beloved, that in this station it is not so difficult for you to remove all restraints because this maqam is the maqam of the deep love.  Know that when you are done with removing restraints, your nafs that follow ash-shaitan and prevent you from reaching the Haqq are dead, and you are capable of receiving messages from the spiritual world.  It says in a verse in al-Qur’an, “Say Allah and let them plunge in their playing.”  They all mean to distract you, so do not be engaged in anything but your Beloved.  And if you do not lend your ear to what they say, this is better for you.  The seeker may stop walking because of his listening to something.  When the seeker hears something, he is disheartened and reverts to the world of humanity.  This is one of the dangers of the maqam.  Be careful of it.  Do not allow anything to distract you from the light.  Remember that the end is to your Lord.  Do not stop with anything except Allah.  Ask Allah’s help to discard everything that stop you on you way. There is no arrival to Him except by Him.  Do not be deceived by anything revealed to you that makes you stop striving once you have become at ease with striving.  Remember that your aspiration is to something very dear and very high.  Remember that your way is full of dangers.  No one does all the walking except those who have great himma.  No one reaches Him except those who have a strong will.  So always be aware.

In this maqam you are given the state of fana’ which will help you in your ascension to the next maqam, in which the nafs become al-mutma’inna.  The fana’ in this maqam is a state (al-hal) that is experienced by the traveler (as-salik), which makes him absent from every sensory perception.  This is not an absence like sleep or unconsciousness.  This is like a person in shock who goes past someone whom he sees but does not really see, or like hearing things but not whom he sees but does not really hearing them, and this is true with all the senses including the mind.  No one knows this state except the one who experiences it.  From this station, the gnostic of Allah said, “A man stopped me and said, ‘Show me this knowledge that is not opposed by ignorance, because any knowledge that is opposed by ignorance is ingnorance.’”

This fana’ is the first fana’.  The second fana’ is given in the sixth maqam which is called the maqam which is called the maqam of an-nafs al-mardiyya.  As for the third fana’, it involved the destruction or oblivion of human attributes in the rank of Oneness, and this is through certainty, and this is the third fana’ and it is also the baqa’.  As it is said, “He annihilates, then he annihilates, and then he annihilates,”  and this annihilation is the baqa’ itself.

Know that in the first fana’, you hear the discourse of the spirituals not through the hearing sense, but through the mirror of your heart.  You do not understand what they say, but when you regain consciousness you begin to understand what they said to you in your secret, and you begin to see what they engraved in the mirror of your heart.  Then if you speak, you speak with wisdom.

The Messenger of Allah, may the blessings and peace of Allah be upon him, referred to this secret by saying, “Whoever is sincere with Allah for forty days, springs of wisdom will gush forth from his heart and upon his tongue.”

The talk of the spirituals in this manner is called the “ringing of bells.”  “O Allah, You Who give when asked, do not deprive me and the lovers of this fana’.  And do not make our lot to be in toil and to satisfy our nafs.  Do not make the dunya our main concern nor the limit of our knowledge.  And remove everything that impedes us from reaching you.”

You may ask, “Is there a cause of this fana’?”  The answer is that it is caused by six matters which make the travelers into gnostics.  They are remembrance (adh-dhikr), reflection (al-fikr), hunger (al-jua’), staying up late at night (az-zahar), silence (as-sond) and withdrawal from creation.  The most powerful of these things is hunger,O you who seek this fana’.  Do not leave your spiritual exercises and your struggling in this station.  If they (the exercises) become hard for you, remind yourself of their benefits. Do not be satisfied with illuminations.  In this station you do not know whether they are shaitanic or spiritual.  Now you understand why the third station is a place of confusion.  The salik does not know if what he receives is from the angel or from the accursed Iblis.

So, O seeker, do not be deceived by what appears to you and thereby leave the practices that took you so far.  Know that your nafs is your enemy.  Do not be trusting of it, despite the high stations that you think have reached.  Continue in your spiritual exercises and in your struggling, and increase your love and increase your himma, and take pleasure in the states of yearning and intoxication.

Know that this station of the love is a station of pleasure.  It is so pleasurable that the salik does not wish to continue his ascension  of the stations.  Know that love is a veil for the beloved.  This state of love is acceptable to the lovers, yet when you compare it to what is above it, it is inferior. When the complete one remembers the state of love and his times in it, he regrets what he experienced in it of removing all restraints and lack of concern.  Yet the state of love, if it is accompanied by spiritual exercises, is a true state.  It is from this state that the lovers compose their poems.  They express themselves with anguish and pining.  But if this poetry is not accompanied by struggle with the nafs, then know that all these words are lies, because they have not had the true tasting of the heart.

This station belongs to the soul.  The soul is the place of love and is in a state of being conscious but is not aware or sensible.  This explains why the salik continues in this station for a long time, because he is absent from himself.  He is busy with his Beloved: mentioning His name, singing His praises and poetry, and describing His beauty.  This all happens in this state of expansion.  But if he is in the state of contraction after expansion and he wakes up from the sleep of love, his chest becomes constricted, his heart almost breaks out of his chest, he becomes humble, and he surrenders in the true surrender.  These two state of expansion and contraction keep evolving in this maqam until the seeker is taken to the fourth maqam, where his love is completed and the qualities of expansion and contraction are replaced by awe and al-‘ans (pronounced unce; this is like the sense of belonging, being comfortable, and living in a beautiful time).

These are two state that arise upon the complete ones they are only known by direct tasting.  The difference between expansion and contraction is that through contraction the nafs is squeezed, whereas through attraction this is not so.  The difference between ‘ans and expansion is that expansion is a state which may cause the seeker to have bad adab with the Haqq, but with ‘ans it is not like that.

In summary, fear and hope, contraction and expansion, awe and ‘ans are really two states only.  The difference in names comes because of the difference in the people and the difference in the stations.  If these two descriptions are given to the nafs that commands to evil and to al-lawamma, they are called fear and hope.  If these two states come upon the nafs al-mulhama, the inspired nafs, they are called contractions and expansion.  If they relate to the nafs al-mutma’inna, radiyya, and mardiyya they are called awe and ‘ansun, familiarity.  And if they are established by the nafs that are complete, they are called jamal and jalal.

So fear (al-khawf) and hope (al-raj’) are for the beginner, expansion (al-qabd) and contraction (al-bast) are for those in the middle station, reverence (al-hayba) and cordiality (al-‘ans) are for the complete one, and beauty (al-jamal) and majesty (al-jalal) are for the inheritor.

So keep striving, O seeker, to ascend from where you are in fear and hope, to arrive at expansion and contraction, and from these states you will ascend to beauty and majesty which are both comfortable states to you.  Both are beautiful to you.  Both are useful to you.  Whenever you turn to something in a state of majesty, it happens by the permission of Allah, because then you are the khalifa of Allah on His earth as His true slav, and Allah is angry at your anger; Allah is revengeful at your feelings of revenge.  So when you see the order of Allah, see things in existence running through your hands, and have no doubt.  This increases you in adab with your Creator, increases you in at-tawba from your sins, and increases you in making astafir for the forgetfulness of your heart which takes you away from the station of slavehood (al-‘ubudiyyah).

When you see yourself in this third station on the straight path doing al-jahad with your nafs, be happy with that and be straight as you have been ordered, and worship your Lord until you arrive at certainty.  When you follow in this way, you open yourself to completion and to divine attraction.  Do not allows your chest to be constricted, because you are doing well and you are opening yourself to happiness.  If you do experience constriction and tightness in this station, know that this is because in this station of the ruh.   The ruh has ascendancy.   In the hours of constriction, the spirit wishes to break through the cage of the body in order to connect to its world, the world of al-jabarut, and you are not yet capable of this.  So have patience in these hours of constriction  and difficulty, because in this constriction there are innumerable benefits.  Had it not been for the fire of constriction, the nafs would not be cleaned of what is ugly in it, for surely the separation of good and bad is only through fire.

If you see that you are not being straight in your struggle with yourself, and if you see that your appetite is strong and that you keeping too much company with creation and are attracted to people, weep for yourself.  Weep for what has happened to you.  Weep about your descent from the highest station to the lowest of the low, and ask Allah to take you back to where you were, and ask for increase to arrive at the station of completion.  Many seekers are not straight, and they slip.  They do not have patience, and regret does not avail them of anything.  So oppose your nafs in this station.  Do not slip.  Whenever you see yourself leaning toward something in this station, struggle with it.  Do not agree with it.  Whenever your nafs ask you for something that is agreeable to the way, then give it to your nafs.  Even if your nafs asks for extreme hunger, extreme sleeplessness, extreme separation from creation, and extreme lack of talk, give this.  Even though the intention in these things may not be totally pure and seek only a good opinion, give, because this is your mount toward sincerity.  The seeker will always have a portion of spiritual pride until he arrives at total sincerity with the help of Allah.

Some of the knowers say that there is no harm in deceiving the nafs by promising it minor miracles and promising it that it will become beloved to all people.  So it is encouraged in the acts of mujahada to break norms, even though these things are disliked.   So the seeker may say to himself, “If you turn to Allah in your struggle with your nafs, you will be able to perform miracles.”  Yet he needs to be wanting the pleasure of Allah in all of this, and he must be wanting to purify himself from his deficiencies.  And he needs to want to truly beautify his self with perfection and good qualities.

As for you, O seeker, beware of stopping with any of this because all of these things prevent you from arrival with your Beloved.  Know that whenever your himma stops with any created thing, the realities of these things will tell you, “We are a trial.  So do not stop with us.”

Some of the seekers do not experience any of this because of the true sincerity of their attention to their Lord.  Their hearts are not troubled by these trials and tribulations, nor do they stop with any created thing.  Those who receive revelations (al-kashf) early on in their walking are prone to stop in their walking, unless Allah covers them with His greatness.  The greatest thing that can happen to the salik is that his inferior qualities are substituted by good qualities that save him from what can cut him off from the way.  The whole point of this traveling or walking is to reach the King of kings.  You cannot reach Him except with the lifting of the veils.

Another way of describing veils is to say that they are  not what is suitable, or one can say that they are an obstruction between the seeker and the sought.  So the changing of these qualities is what makes for a better relationship.   Understand this because this is one of the secrets.  So work hard to change your qualities.  Replace satiety with hunger, sleep with staying up at night, talk with silence, majesty and grandeur with humility, and so one.  Be a real human being, not a human animal.  If you keep to your ascension, you will reach even what the angels have not reached, and you will come face to face with the mirror of your slavehood to reach the mirror of His Lordship, may He be Exalted.  The highest perfection in all of perfection is to be the ultimate in slavehood.  This is why it is said that the farthest station in slavehood is a station that is particular to our Master Muhammad, may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him, but you will not attain this, so do not be greedy for it.  What you need to ask for is that which draws you near to that station.  If you know this, then you know that being humble for Allah is the source of greatest happiness.  You will also know that the secrets of Lordship are placed in the station of slavehood.  So understand and reflect upon this, and walk the way of humbleness, poverty, and need of Allah.  You will become one of those pure free slaves who is free from the slavery to others.  You will not arrive at anything except through slavehood (al-‘ubudiyya) to Allah.

In relation to this, one of the gnostics has said, “Bury your existence in the earth of oblivion (al-khumul).  Nothing grows unless it has been buried.  So bury your existence and hide your identity so that the saying of the Prophet, may the blessings and peace of Allah be upon him, becomes true for you, “Die before you die.”  This is the fana’.   When the salik these attributes, he has no attraction to money, to children, nor to anything, nor does he fear anything.  This is the state of the dead, which prepares them for the world of the barzakh.  So if the salik enters into the world of malakut, he will witness what is suitable for his preparation to meet the bodies of this abode.

So, O seeker, if you are not ready for this, then at least thirst for it and be a seeker of it.  Whoever has a desire for something and strives for it will reach it by the permission of Allah and by the power of Allah.  So keep doing adh-dhikr.   Through this, Allah will light a candle in His malakut world which will help you to see the darkness of your nafs that incites to evil.  And this will help you to see all of the deficiencies of the nafs, and it will help you to deal with them.  Know that the  benefits of adh-dhikr only happen through much dhikr, strong dhikr, and hidden dhikr with adab.  This means that the person doing dhikr should be facing the Qibla if he can, sitting on his knees or standing, and he must not be distracted but must listen to the words he pronounces, in order to be clean outwardly and inwardly.  If you have this adab holding onto the shari’a, then you are doing well.  Do not be bored and do not be agitated if the opening takes time.  Know that the opening has to come, no matter how long it takes, as long as you are straight, as long as you hold onto the shari’a and the tariqa, and as long as you make your dhikr with this name at all times and it the dhikr of Allah.

This is the majestic name.  So when you are doing dhikr, behave as if you are addressing all the limbs of your body, and know that there is nothing in existence except Allah, al-Haqq.  Know that other than Allah is not to be found.  If you hold yourself to this witnessing and you continue in it, you will be given a higher state which will never leave you, and this is the highest aim.  The person in this state is not veiled from creation and he is not veiled from Allah by creation, nor does the Haqq veil him from creation, nor is he veiled by multiplicity from unity, nor is he veiled by unity from multiplicity.  He witnesses the Haqq, Glory be to Him, outwardly in every manifestation.  He does not witness Him outwardly without manifestation.  He does not witness His name, the Outward, without manifestation, as some of the unifiers do.

There are three types of witnessing: complete, deficient, and more deficient.  The complete is as I have just mentioned.  The witnessing is deficient with those who, in witnessing the Outward and witnessing the place of manifestation, do not witness many, nor do they witness creation, nor do they witness His secrets, because this witnessing negates the specific qualities of the attributes of Allah. But the one who holds to this is forgiven because he is in the third station and he is overcome by this.  As for the more deficient, it is the witnessing of the beginners who are veiled by creation from the seeing of the Haqq, so they see only creation and they see only multiplicity.  Perfection is to see multiplicity in the Oneness and to witness the Oneness as it manifests in multiplicity, without either veiling the other.  So the complete one is not veiled from the Haqq by creation, nor does creation veil him from the Haqq.  And the first stage of the complete one is the fourth station, the maqam of the nafs al-mutma’inna.

Al-Mutma’inna

The Nafs in Complete Rest and Satisfaction

The Fourth Station

 The satisfied nafs: its walking is with Allah, its world is the Muhammadan Reality, its place is the secret, its condition is true satisfaction, its sources are some of the shari’a secrets, and its qualities are generosity, putting one’s trust in Allah, tolerance, worship, gratitude, satisfaction with the decree, and patience in trial.  The sign of the seeker (as-salik) entering into this fourth state is his steadfastness with the commands of the shari’a.  He finds pleasure only in the character traits of the Prophet, may the blessings and peace of Allah be upon him, and he finds rest only in following his words.   Where the previous maqam was one of coloring (change), in this maqam the salik gives pleasure to whomever looks at him or listens to him.  Even if he were to talk forever, no one would be bored with what he has to say.  This is because his tongue expresses what Allah has given him to know in his heart about the reality of things and the secrets of the shari’a. Whatever he speaks is in conformity with what Allah and His Messenger have said.   He knows this, not through the study of books, but by virtue of what Allah has placed in is secret.  “I am your secret, My beloved, and You are My secret, so be at rest.”

Everything comes to rest in him, and he drowns in the ocean of modesty and adab.  His state is one of awe.  He has presence and acceptance.  He has realized the reality of creation and the fana’, and has come to understand Allah’s words, “Everything is in annihilation.”

The salik in this maqam may meet with creation from time to time, so that he may benefit creation with what Allah has bestowed on him and share the wisdom in his heart.  O complete man, come out to them and benefit them in the manner in which Allah has bestowed His benefits on you.

Make sure you leave or make time for retreats because in this maqam you are in the beginning stages of completion.  It is not suitable for you to mix with creation at all times, for this will impede your ascension into the remaining stations, and by that I mean the fifth and sixth and seventh.

See where your benefit it.  If it is in seclusion, be secluded, and if it is in mixing or socializing, then socialize.  The sign for benefitting and mixing is that those who are present with you will be benefitted from you in receiving knowledge that Allah has given you, not the knowledge found in books.  In this maqam budy yourself with the remembrance and do not be distracted by what appears to you.  Pray to Allah to bot be shown what can become a distraction that will stop you from serving Him and from standing by His door.  If you receive revelation without protection, this can lead to being distanced from Him.  Know that nearness is only given to the pure slaves who are not delighted by the breaking of norms (miracles, etc.).  So you find that the complete ones who have protection are not aware of any breaking of norms.  (So they have miracles, but  they do not know they are miracles.)

Ask Allah for victory and protection to go through what remains of the veils.  One of the veils in this station is the love of miracles.  Remember that the end is to your Lord.  Know that everything other than Allah is a trial, so do not stop with it.  An example of this is a man who intended to travel to the house of Allah in Mecca.  He departed with the pilgrims.  He went most of the way, and then met a woman who stripped him of his mind.  He decided to stay with her.  The leader of the caravan said to him, “Do not stop here; this will prevent you from doing the Hajj.  Come with us and visit the House of Allah.  On our way back we can marry you to this woman, but if you do not go with us, you will not reach the House of Allah and you will be in disobedience to your Lord.”  But this man was overcome by passion and he never made it to the House of Allah. When he drew nearer to the woman and lifted the veil of her face, he found that she was very ugly.  He regretted his decision, but it was too late.  He tried to catch up to the caravan, but to no avail.  He cried day and night.

The woman here is like the breaking of norms, or minor miracles, and the House of Allah is the nearness to Allah, and the caravan route is like the way to Allah. When the traveler finds himself near the presence of nearness to Allah, many miracles become manifest.  If his passion becomes attached to them before the time has matured for them, he only exhausts himself and misses the mark.  These miracles are part of this creation, this dunya, which have no benefit in this dunya or in the next world.  When he realizes this, he regrets his attachment to them and weeps because they took him away from the maqam that he worked so hard to attain.

Know that the nafs in and of itself is not an ugly thing.  It is a gift from Allah, but if you are attracted to it and this attraction stops you from drawing nearer to Allah, then it becomes ugly.  Remember that nearness is only possible through slavehood, which contains the secret of Lordship.  So understand and do not stop with creation; otherwise that will be all you have.

Know that in this station you will have an attraction to al-wird (recitations) and to the tawhid (prayers) and to the presence of the incoming light, the Prophet, may the blessings and peace of Allah be upon him, in a different way than in the previous stations.

Beware of being secure with the nafs at any station.  It is your enemy, and you should never be secure from its attacks, even if it feigns friendship with you.   Know that you are at risk from it all your life.  For example, you may be given the love of money to help yourself in your worship or in your servitude to Allah and to help your beloveds. This is itself will not harm you if you follow these conditions:

1)      Make sure that this is truly your intent.

2)      Do not be distracted from your Lord by the acquisition of money.

3)      Should you acquire wealth, you should not hide it from people and pretend that you are poor.

In this maqam you may develop the love of leadership.  You may start assuming that you are a shaykh and seeking this position so that people may gather around you and find guidance with you.  Beware of opening  yourself to this and of being attracted to it because it is one of the tricks of the nafs.  But if Allah establishes you in this station, makes you well-known or famous, and then puts the robes of a shaykh on you without your aspiring to it, then be where Allah has put you.  This would be better for you than seclusion.  You know this is the order of Allah if you find that the beloveds around you love you and are obedient to you.  Its signs also are that when you look at them, and you do not find yourself superior to them or they inferior to you.  If you find yourself like this with your brethren, then guide them and counsel them and beautify the Sufi way for them, because this is the way of Allah.

If you reach this fourth station, you are beginning to be qualified to be a guide because of the qualities of gentleness and care, and because you carry these qualities (al-rifq and al-latif and al-halim).   When you arrive at the fourth station, you have the quality of al-mutma’ina.  Yet this is not enough for the complete guidance of others because it does not have the necessary conditions.  So do not hasten and do not put yourself ahead, but complete your walking by advancing in the fifth, sixth, and seventh station.

Know that if you complete the fourth station and find yourself tasting this rest from your Lord, and you find that your foot does not slip from following the Beloved of Allah and the sunna of His Messenger, may the blessings and peace of Allah be upon him, you will find that the gentle divine hands will attract you to completion.  This is different from the first attraction, which you received at the beginning of your walking.  You will hear a call from the secret of the secrets, “O mutma’inna, return to your Lord.”  This will make you forgetful of everything in the dunya and in the Hereafter unless it is present with you.  If it is absent from you, you are absent from it, because in this station you never tire of looking at or witnessing the beauty of the Haqq.

 

 An-Nafs ar-Radiyya

The Well-Pleased Nafs

The Fifth Station

                The nafs ar-radiyya: its walking is for Allah, its world is divinity (al-lahut), its place is the secret of the secrets, its condition is perishing of a different kind from the above-mentioned, but not as previously explained, as that was the fana’ of the middle stage.  Know that the weakness of the senses or the weakening of the senses is for those who are close to entering the state of baqa’, who are at the last stages of their walking.  By this is meant the effacement of human qualities in preparation for the baqa’, which will follow it immediately because this fana’ is the truth of certainty and happens at the seventh station.  The nafs ar-radiyya does not have a warid because the warid is only with the attributes.  In this maqam there is no trace of the attributes, so in this station, the salik is in a state of fana’, not baqa’.   He has no baqa’ with himself, as was the case prior to this station, neither does he have the baqa’ in Allah, as will be the case in the seventh station.  This state can only be understood by tasting, and the kamal may explain it to the seeker who is close to the kamal.  This nafs has asceticism for other than Allah.  Some of its qualities are al-iklas (sincerity),  al-wara, which is like being careful or impeccable, forgetfulness, and al-rida (acceptance) with everything that happens in existence without disturbance or distress to the heart, nor being moved, nor having the desire to remove the source of pain, not is there opposition to what happens because he is deep in witnessing the absolute beauty.  This hal does not impede him from giving guidance or counsel to creation nor from ordering them or forbidding them, yet his (as-salik) heart is completely busy with the world of divinity and the secret of the secrets.  He is also in the utmost of adab with Allah.  His prayers are answered, he has authority with creation, he is respected by everyone high and low.  This is because he was told from the Presence of Nearness, “And today you are established with Us.”  So he is held in exaltation by creation by force.   (He has no choice.)  Those of the creation do not know why they hold him in such high esteem and respect.  However, he should not rely on this phenomenon, especially from unjust people, as he will be touched by the fire of their qualities.

The danger here is if they are good to you.  Beware of endearing yourself to them due to the goodness they show you because of the nature of the heart.  Allah say, “Do not rely on those who are unjust, or else the fire will touch you.”  So busy yourself with your Lord.  Do not turn toward them.  The more you turn away from them and the more you are busy with your Lord, the more they are attracted to you.  If Allah has written for you a share of their wealth, this will reach you by force.  So do not turn to them hoping to receive something of what they have, nor should you turn away from them because of their attraction to you.

In this station you are still not totally secure from the devices of the nafs, so it is best to be wary and not be deluded or enchanted by people’s turning to you or people’s attraction to you.  Surely the one in this maqam is under the authority of the inward, which has total dominion over the outward.  So how can the person have any rest in or be in alliance with a portion of his outward?

So understand and be busy in this maqam with the dhikr of Allah Hayy.  Do much dhikr of this so that you may get through the fana’ and attain to the baqa’ with the Hayy in the sixth station.  You progress form standing at the door to entering the stations of the Living.  The more you do this dhikr, the more your fana’ begins to recede, and you start having the baqa’ in the Living.  You take on the attributes of perfection, which is the meaning of, “I am the hearing by which he hears and the seeing by which he see.”  This is also expressed as the nearness arrived at by superogatory (al-nawfl) prayers.  Know that among the names, there are names called branches (secondary), such as al-Wahhab, al-Fattah, al-Wahid, al-Ahad, and al-Samad.  Do adh-dhikr with these names and with al-Hayy and this will help you to move to the sixth station, which now you need very much.

 Ya Wahhab!  Ya Fattah!  Ya Wahid!  Ya Ahad! Ya Samad! Ya Hayy!

 

An-Nafs al-Mardiyya

The Well-Pleasing Nafs

The Sixth Station

 The nafs al-mardiyya: its walking is to Allah, its world is the world of the seen, its place is the secrets of the hidden, its state is acceptable perplexity, the source of its warid (arriving, finding, source of light, pl. al-wurud) is the shari’a, its attribute is good character and leaving everything other than Allah, gentleness with creation, making peace with creation, and the forgiving of sins, mistakes, and wrong action.  This nafs also combines the love of creation with the love of the Creator.   This is something amazing which is possible only in this station.

The seeker in this station cannot be differentiated from the common people if you look at his outward.  As for his inward, he is the mine of secrets or the repository of secrets.  He is the leader of the best.  He does not witness otherness at all, insofar as they are other.  He is the circumference of all divine knowledge, but not of outward or formal knowledge.  This nafs is called al-mardiyya because the Haqq is pleased with it.  Its walking is from Allah, meaning that it takes whatever it hears of knowledge from the presence of al-Haqq, al-Qayyam.  It has returned from the unseen world to the seen world with the permission of Allah, to benefit mankind with what Allah has bestowed upon it.

Its state is acceptable perplexity. This is referred to in the hadith, “O Allah, increase me in my perplexity in You.”  This is not to be confused with the confusion or doubt that one has at the beginning of the path.  In this maqam the salik fulfills his promises.  He places everything in its right place, so he may spend a lot if he finds that is the right place.  The ignorant one may think that he is being a spendthrift.  The salik may spend very little if he sees that it is not the right place for spending.  The ignorant one may think that he was just being plain mean.  So whoever extols the virtues of the one who is in this maqam, in greed of receiving more from him, he is only wasting his time.  If the salik is abused by someone, this does not stop him from giving to that one if he is deserving.  This is the hal of those who are complete.

With regard to appetites, he holds the middle way.  This quality sounds easy, but in fact is one of the hardest to hold on to, and not everyone who desires it can attain it.

Know that also in this maqam you may receive the good tiding that you are al-khalifa, and you may receive the robes of honor expressed by “I am the Hearing by which he hears and the Seeing by which he sees, and the Hand by which he grasps, and by Me he walks.” (Hadith Qudsi).  This state comes from nearness to Allah, which is arrived at through worship and extra nawfl (the nawfl refers to everything from the orders of Allah.) Be careful not to misunderstand and to think that you are al-Haqq.

So this maqam is arrived at after finishing with the previous maqam in which all of the human attributes, which are the cause for all reaction and suffering, have been obliterated.  Through the nawf acts, he draws nearer to Allah because the nawfl involves the struggle with the nafs.  Allah gives the attribute of certainty as a gift, so beware of following the wrong way and beware of believing in incarnation because our Lord does not enter into anything nor does anything enter into Him.  The truth is that these matters cannot be understood by the mind; whenever the mind tries, it leads to disbelief and to losing the way because these matters can  be understood only with divine support.  The fana’ is not something on the outside, so it cannot be measured or compared to anything else.  The same is true for the baqa’ in Allah, and for the nearness of the obligatory acts or the nearness from the nawfl.  All speech in this maqam is for the people in this maqam who have an understanding through tasting, Allah willing.

Know that the destination of these stations is for the traveler to arrive at his Adamic form, which was the Qibla for the angels.  This reality is the Muhammadan reality, which is Allah’s greatest secret, and the Muhammadan subtlety.  This is the ultimate in nearness to the presence of the Lord.

If he reaches this, he realizes pure slavehood and incapacity, and he knows himself by this description, and he knows his Lord through the attributes of the Lord.  If he knows himself in submission to Allah and in annihilation to Allah, he knows his Lord by might and baqa’.  This is because of the polarity of the ranks of slavehood and the engraving of that in the Adamic world.  This is the meaning of, “Neither My heavens nor My earth contain  Me, but I am contained in the heart of My believing slave.”

All the attributes and names of Allah are in the Adamic form.  Whenever the slave knows his Lord through divine knowledge, he knows the secrets that are placed in the reality of everything, and this is expressed by His saying, “And He taught Adam all the names.”   Here we come to a place where expressions cannot carry the secrets.  When this is revealed to you and you realize that this is the greatest any traveler can seek and the highest of stations, and the most precious in existence for the complete ones, you will rush to seek it through being straight on the path, and by holding onto the shari’a, and by remembering the name al-Qayyum.  You continue holding onto the adab of the shari’a, the tariqa, and the haqiqa, not to be preoccupied by one over the over, until you move into the maqam of realizing the Adamic form and the Muhammadan reality.

Ya Qayyum!

An-Nafs al-Kamala

The Perfect Nafs

The Seventh Station

                 The walking of an-nafs al-kamala is with Allah, its world is multiplicity in unity, and unity in multiplicity, its place is the most hidden that is the most hidden secret, its condition is the baqa’, its source (warid) is all that was mentioned of the waridat (places, sources of arrival) of the nafs, and it combines all of the aforementioned qualities.  The name with which he is engaged is, “Ya Allah! Ya Qahhar!” This is the greatest of all stations because the inward has total dominion, and al-mujahada has been brought to completion.  He has attained the good pleasure of Allah, all his movements are good,  his breaths are expressions of power and wisdom and worship;  if he is seen by people, they remember Allah, and how could they not, when he is the friend of Allah, and he is the Friend.

This is the fourth station in the stations of friendship with Allah, and the fourth station is the station of the common awliya, and the fifth station is the station of the elect awliya, and the sixth is the station of the elect of the awliya.  So Glory be to Him. Nothing withholds what He gives, and nothing can give what He withholds.

Know that the names Ya Allah and Ya Qahhar are the names of al-qutb (the spiritual axis), and this name al-Qahhar is granted to him by his Lord or Master.  The gnostics say that with this name, the qutb gives his disciples whatever he needs to give them from the gifts of the lights and the good tidings.  From this the seekers experience happiness, joy, and attraction in their hearts, in addition to what they gain from doing dhikr and from turning to Allah.

The person in this maqam never tires of worship with the body, the tongue, the heart, the hand, or the foot.  He is always doing istighfar, asking forgiveness.  He is very modest.  His happiness derives from seeing creation turn to the Haqq.  His sorrow and anger arise from their turning their back to the Haqq.  He loves the seekers of truth more than he loves his own children.  He has no hatred for any creature even though he commands to good and forbids evil.  He expresses his love to those who deserve it and upholds the truth of Allah, regardless of blame.  He puts everything in its place.  Whenever he turns his attention to anything, Allah makes it for him as he wills, because his will is inside the will of Allah. So if he wills something and he asks for it, Allah does not deny it because he is a slave by his Lord.  His hearing its divine hearing, and it is so with his seeing and with his will.  If he wills something, it becomes by the permission of Allah.  Allah is our support, and success is through Him, wa al-hamdulillahi rabbi-l-‘alamin.

 Ya Allah!  Ya Qahhar!

 I created a chart that has each of the stations with a breakdown of its name, walking, world, state, place, attributes, etc. so you can compare each station easily. this is a link for the chart in PDF format. PDF Seven Stations of the Nafs Chart.  This link for a chart in Word Seven Stations of the Nafs Chart.