When the human being is sound, there is none so sound as he. When he is pure, there is none so pure as he. When he is near to his Lord, there is none so near as he. The ignorant person sees with the eye of his head, the intelligent person sees with the eyes of his mind and the knower ('arif) sees with the eyes of his heart, possessed of the essence of knowledge (mujawharan 'aliman). All creatures are given to him to swallow, so they are swallowed up in him. He has nothing left apart from the Lord of Truth, so at this point he says, "He is the First and the Last, the Outer and the Inner" (Qur'an 57:3). The Lord of Truth becomes his outer and his inner, his first and his last, his form and his content. He has nothing but Him, so now he establishes his love permanently with Him in this world and the hereafter, complying with His wishes under all circumstances. He prefers His good pleasure and the displeasure of others. No blame attaches to him. As one of the wise has said, "Agree with Allah concerning creatures, and do not agree with creatures concerning Allah. Broken is he who gets broken and mended is he who gets mended."
Your devil, your passions (hawa), your natural inclinations (tab') and your bad companions are your enemies, so beware of them in case they make you fall into perdition. Acquire knowledge so that you will know how to combat them and be on your own guard against them, then you will know how to worship your Lord. From the ignorant person no worship is accepted. The Prophet s.a.w is reported as having said: "If someone worships Allah in ignorance, what he does wrong is more than what he does right."
Note: Extracts from lectures given by Shaykh Abdul Qadir al-Jilani in Ramadhan 545 A.H. Reference: The Sublime Revelation (Al-fath ar-Rabbani) Translated from the Arabic by Muhtar Holland.
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