Fusus al-Hikam The Seals of Wisdom by Shaykh al ... - ImagoMundi

judgements are established in the far and near. Know that the secret of Allah in Ayyub
(whom He made an example for us in a written existing book which this Muhammadan
community reads in order to learn what is in it, and they attach honor to the one who
possesses it), is that Allah praised him for his patience in his supplication to remove
affliction from him. We know that when the slave calls on Allah to remove affliction
from him without that lessening his patience, then he is patient and the best of the
slaves, as Allah said, "What an excellent slave! He truly turned to his Lord." (8) (38:44)
This means he goes back to Allah, not back to the cause.
Allah affects by the cause because the slave depends on it since the causes which will
remove any one matter are many, but the Causer is but one. It is more fitting that the
slave return to the One Source in order to remove that pain by the cause of that than to
the particular cause. It may be that it will not conform to Allah's knowledge in it, and
then some will say, "Allah did not answer me." Yet he did not call on him, but he
inclined to a particular cause which neither the time nor the moment requires. Ayyub
acted by the wisdom of Allah since he was a Prophet. He knew that with one group,
patience is what holds the self back from complaint. That is not our definition of
patience (sabr). Its definition is to hold the self back from complaint to other-than-
Allah, not to Allah. The first group is veiled in their view that the complainer is
lessened in contentment (rida) with the decree by complaint. That is not the case.
Contentment with the decree is not lessened by complaint to Allah or to others, but
contentment with the decreed is lessened. We are not speaking about contentment with
the decreed. Affliction is what is decreed and not the same as the Decree. Ayyub knew
that holding the self back from complaint to Allah for the removal of affliction is to
oppose divine force. It is ignorance if, when Allah afflicts someone by what gives him
pain, he does not call on Allah to remove that painful matter from him. The one who has
realization must supplicate and ask Allah to remove that from him. For that gnostic who
possesses unveiling, that removal comes from the presence of Allah. Allah describes
Himself as "hurt", so He said, "those who hurt Allah and His Messenger." (33:57) What
hurt is greater than that Allah test you with affliction in your heedlessness of Him or a
divine station which you do not know so that you return to Him with your complaint so
that He can remove is from you? Thus the need which is your reality will be proven.
The hurt is removed from Allah by your asking Him to repel it from you, since you are
His manifest form.
One of the gnostics was hungry and wept. Someone who had no tasting (dhawq) in that
area censured him for that. The gnostic said, "But Allah makes me hungry so that I
might weep. He tests me by affliction so that I might ask Him to remove it from me.
This does not lessen my being patient." We know that patience is holding the self back
from complaint to other-than-Allah.
By "other" I mean a particular aspect of Allah. Allah specified a particular one of
Allah's aspects, and it is called the aspect of He-ness, so he calls on Him from that
aspect to remove affliction from him, not from the other aspects called causes. They are
only Him in respect to elaboration of the matter in itself. The gnostic's request does not
veil him from the He-ness of Allah in removing affliction from him and the fact that all
the causes are Him from a particular point of view. This path is only obliged on the
people of adab among the slaves of Allah who are entrusted with the secrets of Allah.
Allah has guardians whom only Allah recognizes, and some of them recognize each