High and low alike are content with empty professions: blind conformity has taken the place of spiritual enthusiasm. The vulgar say, “We know God,” and the elect, satisfied if they feel in their hearts a longing for the next world, say, “This desire is vision and ardent love.” Everyone makes pretensions, none attains to reality. The disciples, neglecting their ascetic practices, indulge in idle thoughts, which they call “contemplation”.
I myself (the author proceeds) have already written several books on Ṣúfiism, but all to no purpose. Some false pretenders picked out passages here and there in order to deceive the public, while they erased and destroyed the rest; others did not mutilate the books, but left them unread; others read them, but did not comprehend their meaning, so they copied the text and committed it to memory and said: “We can discourse on mystical science.” Nowadays true spiritualism is as rare as the Philosopher’s Stone (kibrít-i aḥmar); for it is natural to seek the medicine that fits the disease, and nobody wants to mix pearls and coral with common remedies like shalíthá[[18]] and dawá al-misk.[[19]] In time past the works of eminent Ṣúfís, falling into the hands of those who could not appreciate them, have been used to make lining for caps or binding for the poems of Abú Nuwás and the pleasantries of Jáḥiẕ. The royal falcon is sure to get its wings clipped when it perches on the wall of an old woman’s cottage. Our contemporaries give the name of “law” to their lusts, pride and ambition they call “honour and learning”, hypocrisy towards men “fear of God”, concealment of anger “clemency”, disputation “discussion”, wrangling and foolishness “dignity”, insincerity “renunciation”, cupidity “devotion to God”, their own senseless fancies “divine knowledge”, the motions of the heart and affections of the animal soul “divine love”, heresy “poverty”, scepticism “purity”, disbelief in positive religion (zandaqa) “self-annihilation”, neglect of the Law of the Prophet “the mystic Path”, evil communication with time-servers “exercise of piety”. As Abú Bakr al-Wásiṭí said: “We are afflicted with a time in which there are neither the religious duties of Islam nor the morals of Paganism nor the virtues of Chivalry” (aḥlám-i dhawi ´l-ṃuruwwa). And Mutanabbí says to the same effect:—[[20]]
“God curse this world! What a vile place for any camel-rider to alight in!
For here the man of lofty spirit is always tormented.”
Section.
Know that I have found this universe an abode of Divine mysteries, which are deposited in created things. Substances accidents, elements, bodies, forms, and properties—all these are veils of Divine mysteries. From the standpoint of Unification (tawḥíd) it is polytheism to assert that any such veils exist, but in this world everything is veiled, by its being, from Unification, and the spirit is held captive by admixture and association with phenomenal being. Hence the intellect can hardly comprehend those Divine mysteries, and the spirit can but dimly perceive the marvels of nearness to God. Man, enamoured of his gross environment, remains sunk in ignorance and apathy, making no attempt to cast off the veil that has fallen upon him. Blind to the beauty of Oneness, he turns away from God to seek the vanities of this world and allows his appetites to domineer over his reason, notwithstanding that the animal soul, which the Koran (xii, 53) describes as “commanding to evil” (ammáratun bi ´l-sú´), is the greatest of all veils between God and Man.
Now I will begin and explain to you, fully and lucidly, what you wish to know concerning the “stations” and the “veils”, and I will interpret the expressions of the technicologists (ahl-i ṣaná´i`), and add thereto some sayings of the Shaykhs and anecdotes about them, in order that your object may be accomplished and that any learned doctors of law or others who look into this work may recognize that the Path of Ṣúfiism has a firm root and a fruitful branch, since all the Ṣúfí Shaykhs have been possessed of knowledge and have encouraged their disciples to acquire knowledge and to persevere in doing so. They have never been addicted to frivolity and levity. Many of them have composed treatises on the method of Ṣúfiism which clearly prove that their minds were filled with divine thoughts.
[1]. Julláb and Hujwír were two suburbs of Ghazna. Evidently he resided for some time in each of them.
[2]. Notices occur in the Nafaḥát al-Uns, No. 377; the Safínat al-Awliyá, No. 298 (Ethé’s Cat. of the Persian MSS. in the Library of the India Office, i, col. 304); the Riyáḍ al-Awliyá, Or. 1745, f. 140a (Rieu’s Cat. of the Persian MSS. in the British Museum, iii, 975). In the khátimat al-ṭab` on the last page of the Lahore edition of the Kashf al-Maḥjúb he is called Ḥaḍrat-i Dátá Ganj-bakhsh `Alí al-Hujwírí.