O Son !

FIRST VOLUME,
FORTY-SIXTH LETTER
This letter, written to Naqîb Sayyid Shaikh Ferîd ‘rahmatullâhi
ta’âlâ ’alaih’, states that Allâhu ta’âlâ exists and is One, and that
Muhammad ‘’alaihis-salâm’ is His Messenger, are two definite
facts that are too plain even to contemplate:
May Allâhu ta’âlâ not let you digress from the way followed by
your honourable forefathers. We send our prayers and greetings to
the first and the most superior of them and to the rest! It is as
obvious as the sun that Allâhu ta’âlâ exists and is One and also that
Muhammad ‘’alaihis-salâm’ is His Messenger and also that all the
commandments and the teachings that he brought are true. There
is no need to think over them or to prove them. The heart’s
believing these facts is contingent on its being healthy and without
any spiritual illnesses. When the heart is invalid and out of order,
the heart’s believing will require the ’aql’s thinking and studying.
Thereby, only, will the heart attain tasfiya (purification), i.e.
recovering from illnesses. If the spiritual curtain obscuring the
basîrat or the heart’s vision goes up, one will believe these facts
willingly. For instance, someone with an ailing gall bladder will
hardly acquire any taste from sugar. So it will be necessary to tell
them that sugar is sweet and to prove it to them. However, when
the ailing person recovers, there will no longer be any need to
prove it. The need to prove on account of the ailment does not
detract from the fact that sugar is sweet. A squint-eyed person’s
having double vision of a single person does not necessarily mean
there are two people before them. There is only one person being
seen although the squint-eyed person sees two people. It will be
rather difficult to prove that there is only a single person.
[Ophthalmic disorder called squint-eyedness is termed
Doppelsehen (in medical nomenclature).] [The heart’s belief,
îmân, will suffice for being a Muslim. A Muslim’s heart, however,
catches diseases from their internal enemy, i.e. their own nafs, and
from their external enemies, i.e. the devil and the evil company.
The nafs is by nature an enemy of the Ahkâm-i-islâmiyya. The
heart’s being unhealthy means [its following the nafs, i.e. its being
unwilling to obey Islam, i.e. its taking no pleasure from (doing)
Islam’s commandments, i.e. its relishing Islam’s prohibitions]. That
these prohibitions have been called dunyâ (world) is written in the
hundred and ninety-seventh letter (of the first volume of
– 313 –