In the Name of Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate.
Ãdãb
al-Sulŭk:
A
Treatise on Spiritual Wayfaring
Translated from the Persian by ‘Alĩ Naqĩ
Bãqirshì
INTRODUCTION
All praise and gratitude is due to God,
the Wise and the Merciful: the God Who enables His slaves to travel through the
horizons (afaq) so that they may observe the wonders of His Might and
Wisdom and discover the proofs of His Majesty, as well as the signs of His
Grace and Mercy in all directions and corners of the world: the God Who makes
the (satanic) selves of the wayfarers to die and makes manifest the hidden
secret of their inner selves, and brings what is concealed to light through the
hardships of journey, the taking of risks, and separation from home and
children and the avoidance of the Master of the Kingdom (Malik al-Mulk )
May God's peace and praise be upon the chiefs of mankind and the noblest of the
human species, Muhammad al-Mustafa, his pure Family, his Companions and
his Ummah. Therefore, surrender yourself totally to Hadrat-e Haqq
( The Truth, i.e. God ).
O slave of Allah! Know that you
are a wayfarer (salik) seeking your Lord and ultimately one day you
would meet Him, as said in a tradition: Whoever hopes to meet God should know
that the time of the meeting will come. And you should know that God, the
Exalted, by His perfect Might and Wisdom has destined two journeys for the
Children of Adam. One of them is involuntary (qahri), and the other one
is voluntary (ikhtiyari).
As to the involuntary journey, the starting
point is the father's loins (sulb); the second stage is the mother's womb; the
third stage is the physical world; and the fourth stage is that of the grave,
which is either a garden
out of the gardens
of paradise or is a pit out of the pits of hell. The fifth stage is the Say of
Resurrection, which is equal to fifty thousand years of this world. After the
stage you will reach your eternal home and attain the real abode- that is, the
abode of peace (dar al-salam) ;and the paradise of security
and peace, in case you are among the felicitous and the friends of the Haqq;
or your home will be the abode of fire and torture, if, God forbid, you should
be among the wretched and the enemies of the Haqq, as Allah has said: "On the Day of Resurrection a group will
be in paradise and a group in hell." Every breath that you take is a step
towards the stage of death. Every day of your life is equal to a parsang. Each month is
like a stage (marhalah) and each year like a station (manzil).
Your journey is like journey and movement- and in your ignorance and
forgetfulness you have failed to make ready and equip yourself properly for the
station (manzil) of the grave and the onward journey to the station of
the Day of Resurrection and your eternal and real home.
But the voluntary journey is of two
kinds: one is the journey of the souls and the hearts toward the Almighty and
All-powerful King of the world. The second is a physical journey (safar
jismani) in the earth of God. We will devote a separate chapter to each one
of these two journeys, so that you receive the required guidance for attaining
their goals and are guided in preparing the means, in opening the gates, and in
learning the principles (adab), which will be your companion and
assistant in matters relating to every good and piety, and so that it assists
the people of love ('ishq) and yearning during their journey, and serve insha`Allah
ta `ala, for the compiler as a provision for the Day of Resurrection
vis-a-vis his Lord (Mawla).
O Lord, open the gates of Your grace and
mercy to us! O Lord, Who art Bounteous and Magnanimous!