Documents of the Right Word

prohibitions, worships coming from him reached us through a
succession of scholars. And we received the occult and mystical
knowledge pertaining to the bâtin [heart] via the chain of
Sôfiyya-i-kirâm. Abû Hureyra ‘radiy-Allâhu anh’ stated, “I
acquired two kinds of knowledge from the Messenger of Allah
‘sall-Allâhu ta’âlâ alaihi wa âlihi wa sallam’. I have conveyed
one of them to you. You would kill me if I divulged the second
one.” When ’Umar ‘radiy-Allâhu anh’ passed away, his son
Abdullah said, “One-ninth of knowledge is dead.” Upon seeing
that his statement aroused feelings of doubt in some of the
people around him, he added, “By knowledge I mean ‘knowing
Allâhu ta’âlâ’, not the teachings on matters of menstruation and
lochia.” All the Tarîqat [paths] originate from Rasûlullah. Walîs
received them through their Murshids. None of them opened
their paths. Molla Jâmî says in Nefehât, “The first person to
mention the term was Abû Sa’îd-il-harrâz. [1]
The essence of
Tarîqat were derived from Rasûlullah’s blessed heart. Their
names were given afterwards. Rasûlullah ‘sall-Allâhu alaihi wa
sallam’ would make dhikr with his blessed heart before the
Bi’that [before he was forty years old]. It would not be right to
say that such things as making tawajjuh to Allâhu ta’âlâ, doing
dhikr through nafy and ithbât [Kelima-i-tawhîd] and doing
muraqaba (religious meditation) did not exist during the ’Asr-isa’âdat
or in the time of As-hâb-i-kirâm. The blessed Messenger
was busy with these things during those well-known moments
when he remained silent. These names did not exist in those
days, yet what they represented did. The Prophet’s blessed
utterances were dhikr and his silence was fikr (thought,
meditation, thinking). Tafakkur means thought’s improvement
from wrong to right. This hadîth-i-sherîf is well known: “A little
tafakkur (for a short while) is more useful than one year’s
worship.” Those who assert that these things did not exist at that
time ought to put forward their proofs.
The dhikr of nafy and ithbât, which exists in Tarîqat, was
taught by Hidir ‘alaihis-salâm’ to Abd-ul-khâliq Ghonjduwânî. [2]
Something taught by Hidir ‘alaihis-salâm’ could certainly not be
something which was bid’at or which did not contain nûrs or
lights or which would not be a remedy for illnesses. Should it be
[1] Abû Sa’îd-i-Harrâz passed away in Baghdâd in 277 [A.D. 890].
[2] Abd-ul-khâliq Ghonjduwânî passed away in Bukhârâ in 575 [A.D.
1180].
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