Seadet-i Ebediyye - Endless Bliss Third Fascicle

food to your mouth without you touching it with your hand or to
say that Allâhu ta’âlâ will give you children without your
performing nikâh and marrying. In actions dependent upon
causes that are learned by experience, it is not tawakkul to leave
aside causes. However, it is to have tawakkul at the level of
knowledge and state. To have tawakkul at the level of knowledge
is to know the fact that Allâhu ta’âlâ created all the means for
satisfying hunger, namely, the hand, the mouth, the teeth, the
stomach, organs of digestion, the food, the bread and the
physiological movements. To have tawakkul at the level of state
is the heart’s trusting in Allâhu ta’âlâ’s goodness, its not trusting
in eating, in the hand, in the mouth or in the health. The hand can
be paralysed at any moment. One could catch an alimentary
disease some day, and eating could be of no value. Then in the
creation of the food and in its coming to us and in its being
digested, we should trust not in our own actions or strength but
in Allâhu ta’âlâ’s favouring and goodness.
II — Second kind of causes are those that are not a hundred
per cent effective but which are necessary most of the time. It is
not tawakkul to bypass such causes, either. For example,
although it is mostly useful to get food and drink before setting
out for a journey, sometimes there is no need for such means. It
was our Prophet’s ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’ sunnat and our
savants’ habit to hold fast to such means. Tawakkul is not to
depend upon such means, which are not useful sometimes. One
should depend on the One who creates and sends the means. It is
not sinful give up such means. It is because one’s tawakkul is firm.
This means to say that it is sinful not to eat and drink. But it is not
sinful for a person setting off for a long distance journey not to
take food with him. However, there are two conditions to be
fulfilled for its not being sinful; one has to be strong enough to
endure hunger for several days and must be used to eating what
one finds on one’s way. Ibrâhîm Hawwâs ‘quddisa sirruh’ had
tawakkul. On a long journey he would not take food with him,
but he would take a needle, a pocket-knife, a rope and a bucket.
For, these are things that are a hundred percent effective and
always useful. Water cannot be drawn up without a rope and a
bucket from a well in the wilderness. When one’s clothes are torn
nothing else can serve like a needle. We say again that it is not
tawakkul to give up the means whose effect is not for sure. It is
tawakkul to hold fast to the means and yet to rely not upon the
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