7. It is by this metempsychosis that souls which have not fulfilled their destination here below are purified and become worthy of reunion with God.
8. Without the grace of God, which the Ṣūfīs call Fayaẓānu ʾllāh, or Faẓlu ʾllāh, no one can attain to this spiritual union, but this, they assert, can be obtained by fervently asking for it.
9. The principal occupation of the Ṣūfī, whilst in the body, is meditation on the waḥdānīyah, or Unity of God, the remembrance of God’s names [[ZIKR]], and the progressive advancement in the T̤arīqah, or journey of life, so as to attain unification with God.
II. The Sūfī Journey.
Human life is likened to a journey (safar), and the seeker after God to a traveller (sālik).
The great business of the traveller is to exert himself and strive to attain that perfect knowledge (maʿrifah) of God which is diffused through all things, for the Soul of man is an exile from its Creator, and human existence is its period of banishment. The sole object of Ṣūfīism is to lead the wandering soul onward, stage by stage, until it reaches the desired goal—perfect union with the Divine Being.
The natural state of every human being is humanity (nāsūt), in which state the disciple must observe the Law (sharīʿah); but as this is the lowest form of spiritual existence, the performance of the journey is enjoined upon every searcher after true knowledge.
The various stages (manāzil) are differently described by Ṣūfī writers, but amongst those of India (and, according to Malcolm, of Persia also,) the following is the usual journey:—
The first stage, as we have already remarked, is humanity (nāsūt), in which the disciple must live according to the Law (sharīʿah), and observe all the rites, customs, and precepts of his religion. The second is the nature of angels (malakūt), for which there is the pathway of purity (t̤arīqah). The third is the possession of power (jabrūt), for which there is knowledge (maʿrifah); and the fourth is extinction (fanāʾ) (i.e. absorption into the Deity), for which there is Truth (ḥaqīqah).
The following more extended journey is marked out for the traveller by a Ṣūfī writer, ʿAzīz ibn Muḥammad Nafasī, in a book called al-Maqṣadu ʾl-Aqṣā, or the “Remotest Aim,” which has been rendered into English by the lamented Professor Palmer (Oriental Mysticism, Cambridge, 1867):—