52. Abu ´l-`Abbás Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Sahl al-Ámulí.
He was always held in great respect by his contemporaries. He was versed in the sciences of Koranic exegesis and criticism, and expounded the subtleties of the Koran with an eloquence and insight peculiar to himself. He was an eminent pupil of Junayd, and had associated with Ibráhím Máristání. Abú Sa`íd Kharráz regarded him with the utmost veneration, and used to declare that no one deserved the name of Ṣúfí except him. It is related that he said: “Acquiescence in natural habits prevents a man from attaining to the exalted degrees of spirituality,” because natural dispositions are the instruments and organs of the sensual part (nafs), which is the centre of “veiling” (ḥijáb) whereas the spiritual part (ḥaqíqat) is the centre of revelation. Natural dispositions become attached to two things: firstly, to this world and its accessories, and secondly, to the next world and its circumstances: to the former in virtue of homogeneousness, and to the latter through imagination and in virtue of heterogeneousness and non-cognition. Therefore they are attached to the notion of the next world, not to its true idea, for if they knew it in reality, they would break off connexion with this world, and nature would then have lost all her power and spiritual things would be revealed. There can be no harmony between the next world and human nature until the latter is annihilated, because “in the next world is that which the heart of man never conceived”. The worth (khaṭar) of the next world lies in the fact that the way to it is full of danger (khaṭar). A thing that only comes into one’s thoughts (khawáṭir) has little worth; and inasmuch as the imagination is incapable of knowing the reality of the next world, how can human nature become familiar with the true idea (`ayn) thereof? It is certain that our natural faculties can be acquainted only with the notion (pindásht) of the next world.