You must know that, by universal consent of the Ṣúfí Shaykhs, the saints are at all times and in all circumstances subordinate to the prophets, whose missions they confirm. The prophets are superior to the saints, because the end of saintship is only the beginning of prophecy. Every prophet is a saint, but some saints are not prophets. The prophets are constantly exempt from the attributes of humanity, while the saints are so only temporarily; the fleeting state (ḥál) of the saint is the permanent station (maqám) of the prophet; and that which to the saints is a station (maqám) is to the prophets a veil (ḥijáb). This view is held unanimously by the Sunní divines and the Ṣúfí mystics, but it is opposed by a sect of the Ḥashwiyya—the Anthropomorphists (mujassima) of Khurásán—who discourse in a self-contradictory manner concerning the principles of Unification (tawḥíd), and who, although they do not know the fundamental doctrine of Ṣúfiism, call themselves saints. Saints they are indeed, but saints of the Devil. They maintain that the saints are superior to the prophets, and it is a sufficient proof of their error that they declare an ignoramus to be more excellent than Muḥammad, the Chosen of God. The same vicious opinion is held by another sect of Anthropomorphists (mushabbiha), who pretend to be Ṣúfís, and admit the doctrines of the incarnation of God and His descent (into the human body) by transmigration (intiqál), and the division (tajziya) of His essence. I will treat fully of these matters when I give my promised account of the two reprobated sects (of Ṣúfís). The sects to which I am now referring claim to be Moslems, but they agree with the Brahmans in denying special privileges to the prophets; and whoever believes in this doctrine becomes an infidel. Moreover, the prophets are propagandists and Imáms, and the saints are their followers, and it is absurd to suppose that the follower of an Imám is superior to the Imám himself. In short, the lives, experiences, and spiritual powers of all the saints together appear as nothing compared with one act of a true prophet, because the saints are seekers and pilgrims, whereas the prophets have arrived and have found and have returned with the command to preach and to convert the people. If any one of the above-mentioned heretics should urge that an ambassador sent by a king is usually inferior to the person to whom he is sent, as e.g. Gabriel is inferior to the Apostles, and that this is against my argument, I reply that an ambassador sent to a single person should be inferior to him, but when an ambassador is sent to a large number of persons or to a people, he is superior to them, as the Apostles are superior to the nations. Therefore one moment of the prophets is better than the whole life of the saints, because when the saints reach their goal they tell of contemplation (musháhadat) and obtain release from the veil of humanity (bashariyyat), although they are essentially men. On the other hand, contemplation is the first step of the apostle; and since the apostle’s starting-place is the saint’s goal, they cannot be judged by the same standard. Do not you perceive that, according to the unanimous opinion of all the saints who seek God, the station of union (jam`) belongs to the perfection of saintship? Now, in this station, a man attains such a degree of rapturous love that his intelligence is enraptured in gazing upon the act of God (fi`l), and in his longing for the Divine Agent (fá`il) he regards the whole universe as that and sees nothing but that. Thus Abú `Alí Rúdbárí says: “Were the vision of that which we serve to vanish from us, we should lose the name of servantship (`ubúdiyyat)” for we derive the glory of worship (`ibádat) solely from vision of Him. This is the beginning of the state of the prophets, inasmuch as separation (tafriqa) is inconceivable in relation to them. They are entirely in the essence of union, whether they affirm or deny, whether they approach or turn away, whether they are at the beginning or at the end. Abraham, in the beginning of his state, looked on the sun and said: “This is my Lord,” and he looked on the moon and stars and said: “This is my Lord” (Kor. vi, 76-8), because his heart was overwhelmed by the Truth and he was united in the essence of union. Therefore he saw naught else, or if he saw aught else he did not see it with the eye of “otherness” (ghayr), but with the eye of union (jam`), and in the reality of that vision he disavowed his own and said: “I love not those that set” (Kor. vi, 76). As he began with union, so he ended with union. Saintship has a beginning and an end, but prophecy has not. The prophets were prophets from the first, and shall be to the last, and before they existed they were prophets in the knowledge and will of God. Abú Yazíd was asked about the state of the prophets. He replied: “Far be it from me to say! We have no power to judge of them, and in our notions of them we are wholly ourselves. God has placed their denial and affirmation in such an exalted degree that human vision cannot reach unto it.” Accordingly, as the rank of the saints is hidden from the perception of mankind, so the rank of the prophets is hidden from the judgment of the saints. Abú Yazíd was the proof (ḥujjat) of his age, and he says: “I saw that my spirit (sirr) was borne to the heavens. It looked at nothing and gave no heed, though Paradise and Hell were displayed to it, for it was freed from phenomena and veils. Then I became a bird, whose body was of Oneness and whose wings were of Everlastingness, and I continued to fly in the air of the Absolute (huwiyyat), until I passed into the sphere of Purification (tanzíh), and gazed upon the field of Eternity (azaliyyat) and beheld there the tree of Oneness. When I looked I myself was all those. I cried: ‘O Lord, with my egoism (maní-yi man) I cannot attain to Thee, and I cannot escape from my selfhood. What am I to do?’ God spake: ‘O Abú Yazíd, thou must win release from thy “thou-ness” by following My beloved i.e. (Muḥammad). Smear thine eyes with the dust of his feet and follow him continually.‘” This is a long narrative. The Ṣúfís call it the Ascension (mi`ráj) of Báyazíd;[[127]] and the term “ascension” denotes proximity to God (qurb). The ascension of prophets takes place outwardly and in the body, whereas that of saints takes place inwardly and in the spirit. The body of an apostle resembles the heart and spirit of a saint in purity and nearness to God. This is a manifest superiority. When a saint is enraptured and intoxicated he is withdrawn from himself by means of a spiritual ladder and brought near to God; and as soon as he returns to the state of sobriety all those evidences have taken shape in his mind and he has gained knowledge of them. Accordingly, there is a great difference between one who is carried thither in person and one who is carried thither only in thought (fikrat), for thought involves duality.
Discourse on the Superiority of the Prophets and Saints to the Angels.
The whole community of orthodox Moslems and all the Ṣúfí Shaykhs agree that the prophets and such of the saints as are guarded from sin (maḥfúẕ) are superior to the angels. The opposite view is held by the Mu`tazilites, who declare that the angels are superior to the prophets, being of more exalted rank, of more subtle constitution, and more obedient to God. I reply that this is not as you imagine, for an obedient body, an exalted rank, and a subtle constitution cannot be causes of superiority, which belongs only to those on whom God has bestowed it. Iblís had all the qualities that you mention, yet he is universally acknowledged to have become accursed. The superiority of the prophets is indicated by the fact that God commanded the angels to worship Adam; for the state of one who is worshipped is higher than the state of the worshipper. If they argue that, just as a true believer is superior to the Ka`ba, an inanimate mass of stone, although he bows down before it, so the angels may be superior to Adam, although they bowed down before him, I reply: “No one says that a believer bows down to a house or an altar or a wall, but all say that he bows down to God, and it is admitted by all that the angels bowed down to Adam (Kor. ii, 32). How, then, can the Ka`ba be compared to Adam? A traveller may worship God on the back of the animal which he is riding, and he is excused if his face be not turned towards the Ka`ba; and, in like manner, one who has lost his bearings in a desert, so that he cannot tell the direction of the Ka`ba, will have done his duty in whatever direction he may turn to pray. The angels offered no excuse when they bowed down to Adam, and the one who made an excuse for himself became accursed.” These are clear proofs to any person of insight.
Again, the angels are equal to the prophets in knowledge of God, but not in rank. The angels are without lust, covetousness, and evil; their nature is devoid of hypocrisy and guile, and they are instinctively obedient to God; whereas lust is an impediment in human nature; and men have a propensity to commit sins and to be impressed by the vanities of this world; and Satan has so much power over their bodies that he circulates with the blood in their veins; and closely attached to them is the lower soul (nafs), which incites them to all manner of wickedness. Therefore, one whose nature has all these characteristics and who, in spite of the violence of his lust, refrains from immorality, and notwithstanding his covetousness renounces this world, and, though his heart is still tempted by the Devil, turns back from sin and averts his face from sensual depravity in order to occupy himself with devotion and persevere in piety and mortify his lower soul and contend against the Devil, such a one is in reality superior to the angel who is not the battle-field of lust, and is naturally without desire of food and pleasures, and has no care for wife and child and kinsfolk, and need not have recourse to means and instruments, and is not absorbed in corrupt ambitions. A Gabriel, who worships God so many thousands of years in the hope of gaining a robe of honour, and the honour bestowed on him was that of acting as Muḥammad’s groom on the night of the Ascension—how should he be superior to one who disciplines and mortifies his lower soul by day and night in this world, until God looks on him with favour and grants to him the grace of seeing Himself and delivers him from all distracting thoughts? When the pride of the angels passed all bounds, and every one of them vaunted the purity of his conduct and spoke with an unbridled tongue in blame of mankind, God resolved that He would show to them their real state. He therefore bade them choose three of the chief among them, in whom they had confidence, to go to the earth and be its governors and reform its people. So three angels were chosen, but before they came to the earth one of them perceived its corruption and begged God to let him return. When the other two arrived on the earth God changed their nature so that they felt a desire for food and drink and were inclined to lust, and God punished them on that account, and the angels were forced to recognize the superiority of mankind to themselves.[[128]] In short, the elect among the true believers are superior to the elect among the angels, and the ordinary believers are superior to the ordinary angels. Accordingly those men who are preserved (ma`ṣúm) and protected (maḥfúẕ) from sin are more excellent than Gabriel and Michael, and those who are not thus preserved are better than the Recording Angels (ḥafaẕa) and the noble Scribes (kirám-i kátibín).
Something has been said on this subject by every one of the Shaykhs. God awards superiority to whom He pleases, over whom He pleases. You must know that saintship is a Divine mystery which is revealed only through conduct (rawish). A saint is known only to a saint. If this matter could be made plain to all reasonable men it would be impossible to distinguish the friend from the foe or the spiritual adept from the careless worldling. Therefore God so willed that the pearl of His love should be set in the shell of popular contempt and be cast into the sea of affliction, in order that those who seek it may hazard their lives on account of its preciousness and dive to the bottom of this ocean of death, where they will either win their desire or bring their mortal state to an end.
8.The Kharrázís.
They are the followers of Abú Sa`íd Kharráz, who wrote brilliant works on Ṣúfiism and attained a high degree in detachment from the world. He was the first to explain the state of annihilation and subsistence (faná ú baqá), and he comprehended his whole doctrine in these two terms. Now I will declare their meaning and show the errors into which some have fallen in this respect, in order that you may know what his doctrine is and what the Ṣúfís intend when they employ these current expressions.
Discourse on Subsistence (baqá) and Annihilation (faná).
You must know that annihilation and subsistence have one meaning in science and another meaning in mysticism, and that formalists (ẕáhiriyán) are more puzzled by these words than by any other technical terms of the Ṣúfís. Subsistence in its scientific and etymological acceptation is of three kinds: (1) a subsistence that begins and ends in annihilation, e.g. this world, which had a beginning and will have an end, and is now subsistent; (2) a subsistence that came into being and will never be annihilated, viz. Paradise and Hell and the next world and its inhabitants; (3) a subsistence that always was and always will be, viz. the subsistence of God and His eternal attributes. Accordingly, knowledge of annihilation lies in your knowing that this world is perishable, and knowledge of subsistence lies in your knowledge that the next world is everlasting.
But the subsistence and annihilation of a state (ḥál) denotes, for example, that when ignorance is annihilated knowledge is necessarily subsistent, and that when sin is annihilated piety is subsistent, and that when a man acquires knowledge of his piety his forgetfulness (ghaflat) is annihilated by remembrance of God (dhikr), i.e., when anyone gains knowledge of God and becomes subsistent in knowledge of Him he is annihilated from (entirely loses) ignorance of Him, and when he is annihilated from forgetfulness he becomes subsistent in remembrance of Him, and this involves the discarding of blameworthy attributes and the substitution of praiseworthy attributes. A different signification, however, is attached to the terms in question by the elect among the Ṣúfís. They do not refer these expressions to “knowledge” (`ilm) or to “state” (ḥál), but apply them solely to the degree of perfection attained by the saints who have become free from the pains of mortification and have escaped from the prison of “stations” and the vicissitude of “states”, and whose search has ended in discovery, so that they have seen all things visible, and have heard all things audible, and have discovered all the secrets of the heart; and who, recognizing the imperfection of their own discovery, have turned away from all things and have purposely become annihilated in the object of desire, and in the very essence of desire have lost all desires of their own, for when a man becomes annihilated from his attributes he attains to perfect subsistence, he is neither near nor far, neither stranger nor intimate, neither sober nor intoxicated, neither separated nor united; he has no name, or sign, or brand, or mark.