In the Name of Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate.
Ădăb al-Sulŭk:
A
Treatise on Spiritual Wayfaring
By Shaykh Najm
al-din Kubra (qs)
CHAPTER
ONE
Regarding the Spiritual Journey Towards
the Glorious Lord and the Significance of This Journey.
O slave of God, know that God, the Exalted,
created man only in order to enable his heart or spirit to make the journey
towards Him and to attain communion with Him, and to observe His Glory and
Beauty, which is the ultimate end of all purposes and goals and the end of all
bounties and gifts.
The world and whatsoever in it, as well as the other world and whatsoever is in
it, have been created for the same purpose. The advent of the prophets and
messengers and the revelation of the Qur'an and the other scriptures - all are
meant to fulfil the same purpose. As God says:
And I did not create the jinn and the
human kind except that they should serve ( or worship ) Me. ( 51:56 )
Ibn `Abbas (May God be
pleased with him ) said that here li ya `budun ( that they may serve Me
) means li ya`rifun (that they may know Me). That is, all
have been created in order to know Me. According to a sacred tradition ( hadith
qudsi ), God has said:
I was a hidden treasure; then I wished to become known. Then
I created the creation, so that I may be known.
But as to the meaning of this journey, know
that man's heart is confronted with veils, obstacles and great distances ( of
separation from God ).
There are also for it degrees, stages and
stations of proximity to God. If one does not overcome the hurdles of the path,
one cannot attain any degree of proximity to God.
* * Ι * *
The Sacred Lord (Hadrat al-Quds )
will not be revealed until and unless he tears away the veils of the self ( hujub
al-nafs ). So the first veil, which is the cause of separation from the
Almighty Lord (Hadrat al-`Izzah ) is ignorance regarding Him, ascribing
of partners to the One (shirk), and doubt in His attributes of Glory and
Perfection. All this amounts to the negation (kufr ) to God, the
Exalted, which is the greatest and the darkest of all veils, as God has said:
"Surely Allah does not forgive that
partners should be ascribed to Him. (4:48, 116 )
So it is
essential for the seeker of God to change the darkness of ignorance of his
heart into illumination by means of the light of knowledge, to attain the light
of certainty ( yaqin ) by removing the darkness of doubt, to reach Tawhid
by coming out of the darkness of polytheism, and to attain the light of faith
by freeing himself from the perplexity of negation. Otherwise his body and soul
will remain in eternal darkness and damnation in the lowest levels of hell,
which God has ordained for the unbelievers, infidels and the enemies of God.
* * ΙΙ * *
The second
stage on the path of attaining proximity to God is that of obedience (tā`ah) and servitude (`u
būdiyyah ) to Him, for God has commanded: O mankind, worship your God!
Moreover, the Prophet (S) has narrated from the Exalted Authority that He has
said:
Those who seek nearness to Me do not
succeed in attaining their goal except in proportion to their fulfilment of all
that I have made obligatory for them. My servant always seeks nearness to Me by
means of the 'nawafil' (supererogatory acts of worship )
until he attains to My love for him.
Hence, whoever really knows his Master (Mawla)
must obey Him, and whoever has discovered his Lord must worship Him; otherwise
he will remain in the darkness of sins at the levels of blasphemy, for sin is
one of the stages of remoteness (bu`d) from God and obedience is a means
to His nearness.
* * ΙΙΙ * *
The third of the stages of nearness is
good conduct. Therefore, it is for the seeker of Haqq ( Truth ) to
transform his unworthy conduct into a praiseworthy one, because every
praiseworthy conduct is considered to be a means of nearness to the Lord. As
every moral vice is a step in the direction away from Him and which incites His
displeasure, the true seeker is obliged to turn himself from the darkness of
pride to the light of humility, from the meanness of jealousy to the virtue of
affection and compassion, from the baseness of stinginess to the loftiness of
magnanimity, from the dark abyss of ingratitude to the bright heights of
gratitude, from the darkness of hypocrisy to the light of sincerity, from the
desert of attachment to superficial beauty and riches of the corporeal world to
the garden of love and reliance upon the Lord of the heavens and the earth,
from the darkness of ( false sense of ) security ( and unawareness ) to the
light of the fear of God, from the obscurity of despair ( and distrust ) to the
light of hope and trust, from the shadows of wrath and anger to the light of
patience and tolerance, from the darkness of impatience and anxiety while
facing adversity and calamity to the light of patience and unconditional
surrender to the bitterness of fate, from the darkness of negligence to the
light of awareness and remembrance, from the darkness of perplexity and
waywardness to the light of resignation and humility, from the darkness of
dependence of worldly means to the light of submission to the will of the Lord
of all Lords, and from the darkness of slavery of lust and sensuality to the
light of obedience to the exalted Creator. Thus, this journey is one of the
most important journeys, and it is obligatory for all the seekers of Divine nearness,
and the seekers of the highest felicity and the eternal abode in the Hereafter,
to perform this journey.