The Saintly Spiritual Guides

they would not be able to misguide him nor shake him to a hair’s breadth.

In ‘The Ninth Level’ of ‘The First Station’ the following has been mentioned, as a short indication of the lessons learned by the traveller in that madrasa:

لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ اللهُ الَّذِي دَلَّ عَلَى وُجُوبِ وُجُودِهِ فِي وَحْدَتِهِ اتِّفَاقُ جَمِيعِ الأَصْفِيَاءِ

بِقُوَّةِ بَرَاهِينِهِمُ الزَّاهِرَةِ الْمُحَقَّقَةِ الْمُتَّفِقَةِ

There is no god but Allāh, the Necessary Being. The agreement of

all of the sincere friends, by the power of their verified, congruous,

luminous conclusive proofs, demonstrates the necessity of His

unitive existence.

That contemplative traveller, was greatly longing for the vision of the lights, and the spiritual experiences that were increasing rapidly as his faith intensified and became clearer, and as he ascended from the stage of the knowledge of certainty (‘ilm al-yaqīn) to that of the vision of certainty (‘ayn al-yaqīn).

As he was returning from the madrasa, thousands maybe millions of the saintly spiritual guides invited him to a lodge (tekke), that was furthermore a house of remembrance, a place of spiritual guidance, and indeed a house of hospitality as vast as the deserts brimming with spiritual emanations and lights, that were in fact expanding through this place’s annexation to a limitless number of smaller Sūfi lodges (tekkes and zāwiyas).

Those spiritual guides, who strove for the reality, reached the truth, and attained to the stage of the vision of certainty (‘ayn al-yaqīn) under the shade of the supreme way of Muḥammad and the Ascension (Mi‘rāj) of Aḥmad (‘alayhisṣalātu wassalām). They invited him to their Sūfi lodges (dargāh), and he entered.

He saw that these spiritual guides, the people of mystical unveiling (kashf) and wonder-working (karāmah), all declare the necessity of the Divine existence and unity, in agreement and consensus, on the basis of their mystical unveilings (kashf), visions (mushāhadah) and wonders (karāmah), saying لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ هُو (There is no god but Him).

He saw with the vision of certainty how manifest and dazzling that reality is, attested to by the consensus and agreement of these astute, saintly genius people, these illumined knowers of Allāh (‘ārifūn), who exist in seventy different colours. In truth, they exist in colours as varied as the number of the Beautiful Names (Al-Asmāu’l-Ḥusnā) of Allāh, that manifest from the light of the Beginninglessly Eternal Sun (Ash-Shamsu’l-Azalī). They exist in differing colours, illuminated like the knowledge the sun has of the seven colours present in its light. [In addition to] the different true orders (ṭarīqah), and numerous sound ways (masālik), and varied and rightful spiritual methods (mashārib), that are all valid.

He saw that the consensus of the prophets as well as the agreement of the great scholars, and the harmony of the saints, as well as the overall agreement of these three groups of people is brighter than the light of the day in its implication of the sun.

In ‘The Tenth Level’ of ‘The First Station’ the following has been mentioned, as a short indication of the benefit the traveller derived from the spiritual emanations in the Sūfi lodge (tekke):

لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ اللهُ الَّذِي دَلَّ عَلَى وُجُوبِ وُجُودِهِ فِي وَحْدَتِهِ إِجْمَاعُ الأَوْلِيَاءِ

بِكَشْفِيَّاتِهِمْ وَكَرَامَاتِهِمُ الظَّاهِرَةِ الْمُحَقَّقَةِ الْمُصَدَّقَةِ