Al-Baqi

He is the One Who in His Oneness is the Subsister of Eternal Existence and Who is described as being the Subsistent and the Pre-Existent, there being nothing face-to-face with His annihilation.  He is subsistent without ending.  So you who are Muslim, see Allah’s Favor in subsistence in the Hereafter, and beautify His names, and qualities, and characteristics.

From: The Children Around the Table of Allah by Shaykh Muhammad Sa’id al-Jamal ar-Rifa’i Head of the Higher Sufi Council in Jerusalem and the Holy Land Teacher at the Dome of the Rock (al-Aqsa)

AL-BAQI

 Allah is the Everlasting One whose existence in the future is forever.  Time only exists for the changing creation.  It started with Allah’s word of creation and will end on Doomsday.  There was no time before the creation, but Allah existed.  The creation will end, and time with it, but Allah the Everlasting One will still exist.

This world is but a guesthouse where the visitor stays for awhile, then leaves.  Over millennia, how many visitors have come and gone!  Who were they?  Where are they?  Where did they go?  Nations and civilizations have come and gone.  Humanity and everything else in the universe is like this but for human beings, this world is also a field where we labor to grow wheat or thorns, and whose harvest we will find in the Hereafter.  This life is like a parade ground; everyone passes as his turn comes, all in different groups, under different banners, with different uniforms, marching to different music.  No one is left in this wold, nor is this world left with anyone.  All is material, temporal, including the world itself, the whole universe, except Allah the Everlasting One.

Yet there is a way to gain an eternal life during this short visit here.  It is achieved by not tying one’s heart to this world.  It is by not working only for profit in this world, by nor working for one’s own immediate benefit.  If one works for Allah’s sake, for Allah’s pleasure, for the benefit of Allah’s creation now and in the future, when all is ended and this body has returned to dust one’s work will carry one to eternity.

If you are a doctor or an architect, when you go to that realm where there is no one who is sick and nothing to build, both your being and your knowledge will disappear.  But if you discovered penicillin, which will keep curing the sick long after you are gone, or if you built a bridge that people will cross for a long time, and if your intention in doing these things was to serve rather than to gain, you will earn eternity in the Hereafter for what you have done in this temporal life.

‘Abd al-Baqi is the good servant of Allah who is given the knowledge of eternity, whom Allah has rendered eternal within His eternity in the state of baqa’ bi-llah.  In that state, his worship is his servantship: the servant and the Lord have become one, and there is nothing left of the servant himself.

The faithful who recite this Name 113 times daily will find health and prosperity, their work and property will be safe, and it is to be hoped that they will receive Allah’s mercy and compassion on the Day of Judgment.

If someone who is afflicted with chronic fear recites this Name 113 times each night when going to bed, relief may come.

From: The Name & the Named by Shaykh Tosun Bayrak al-Jerrahi al-Halveti