BB00309: Khutbih Qabl az Dibajiy-i-Sahifih

Praise be to God, the Incomparable in sovereignty, Who hath caused to perish, and hath extinguished, the lamp of every one that veileth thee from God, exalted be He. Thus hast thou attained unto the Praiseworthy Station whereunto God—glorified be He—hath promised the people of night-vigil and prayer; that is, the turning, in true unity, within the darkness of multiplicity:

“It may be that thy Lord will raise thee up to a Praiseworthy Station.”

And this writing is a path of wayfaring, a road of consecrated devotion for them that are endued with insight; therein is sufficiency for the sincere, the upholders of God’s unity.

And, in fuller detail, it was written by my lord, my stay and confidant, my teacher, Haji Sayyid Kazim Rashti—may God prolong his days—who hath set it forth and made it plain:

“Follow thou the way of thy Lord with humility; there proceedeth from their bellies a drink of diverse hues, wherein is healing for men, and mercy; yet it increaseth the wrong-doers in naught but loss.”

[cf. Q16:69]

The treatise of wayfaring [suluk] was completed; in the days of the late one it was written, and it remaineth preserved for a person wondrous and truly unique, whose station none can know, and whose rank none can number, save His honored presence—al-Khalil—and the noble Master, my soul be a ransom for Him.

In the Name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate.

Praise be unto God, Peerless in majesty, Most Glorious in praise, unique in origination, Exalted in beauty, Sanctified in raiment—the Single, the One; the Originator, the Self-Subsisting—He besides Whom there is none other god. He hath brought into being the conjoined realities in their own forms, without any prior exemplar; and He hath created the kindred essences in their several shapes, without likeness that could match them; that the peoples, in the pathway of their repose, might learn their portion of severance and detachment—without attribute that resembleth it—and that the unity-proclaimers, in the dawning-place of rejoicing, might witness a dewdrop from the radiance of that conjunction with the Unapproachable—without description that could equal it.

Glorified be God, One in His bounties, Single in His gifts, sanctified above the limits of similitudes and the strokes of parables! He hath called into being the Will as the beginning of act, upon the temple of its love; and He hath chosen the Purpose that it might be known in the form of its receptivity, with none beneath it to rival its creation. And, in truth, He hath brought forth—upon the line that divideth the Purpose—the Sea of Measure (qadar) in the figure of a triangle, by a wondrous origination, for the overflowing of its effulgence. And for the Decree (qada’) He made firm the ordinance of manifestation after concealment, from the secret of creation, upon the temple of invention (bada), with a crimson hue; that the detached in this House might learn the judgment of the Will—arising from no thing, and fashioned in no form that any can encompass.

Glorified be He above all that the likeners have imagined! For the sages of illumination have likened it in a manner foreign to its truth; and they have judged it by the measure of a fourfold scheme, even as the Christians judged by the figure of the cross concerning its “sister.” Exalted be God, the Creator of all things, far above the description of the Peripatetics and their characterizations—whether they name it the fourth word, the all-comprehending pillar, the flashing light, the rising sun, the far-reaching name, the decisive trace, the guarding secret, the repelling decree, the hidden treasure, the all-embracing bounty—through whose hands God hath disclosed oceans of marvels, and by whose wisdom He hath perfected the mysteries of His crafts, and by whose hands He hath manifested the veils of the beauty of the advancing dawns, the One Who counteth all.

By God’s leave, this is a writing—a workmanship—fashioned by every craftsman: the one severed from all save God amid the assemblies; the divider between trusts; the vowed one by whose words a shining light hath arisen; the one through whose nobility the love of the Wondrous hath become the dwelling-place of every contented soul; the bearer, by His majesty, of the weakness of every supplicant; the sender-down of benefits from the gloom of gatherings; the served one by whose verses the gleaming breakers of idols are made manifest; the one uplifted by whose lights the swiftness of the assailants is quickened; hidden with God upon the heights of the sanctity of rising-places; and manifest unto creation through the Revelation of God in decisive lines—the Light of Praise and the Mystery of Glory. God hath made him, for the loftiness of the majesty of the Family of God, a trustee of His power, a subduer of His awe, and a herald of His greatness; that the unity-proclaimers, at this mighty Point, may behold the sanctification of the Truth and His chosen ones above the bounds of likeness and the language of representation; and that all may attain, within the temple of magnification, their share of holiness.

There is none other God but God, the Single, the Unique; the Self-Subsisting, the One, the Everlasting, the Living. He hath no peer, no rival, no equal. He hath singled out His chosen ones for the knowledge of Him, above division and disjunction, through the loftiness of His recognition and the greatness of His gates in the paths of separation, beyond the limits of conjunction, for the majesty of His love—so that the holy essences of the most sanctified knowers may witness, in the dawning-place of praise, the crimson mark in the description of the sign of the Gate that shineth throughout the white age; and that the inner realities of the most noble may perceive, in the Orient of creation, the mystery of conjunction, beyond description, in the sign of praise upon Sinai’s mount; and that the pure in heart among the Arabs, in the utmost reach of eloquence, may know the station of union within the Point of severance, by the fragrance of the Unapproachable—through the recognition of a thousand souls cut off from all save God—by this Most Great Pillar, wherein are hidden the attributes and the names.

Thus hath this become the Proof of God unto the possessors of understanding among the people of attributes—complete in its proclamation—and the manifest bounty of God, overflowing, unto the people of prostration, through the station of detachment. And let all behold—by the appearance of the dawning one—from the eye of the needle upon the breast of Sinai, for these youths, the secret of glory and praise. God beareth witness that there is none other God but Him, even as He hath borne witness unto His own Self; none knoweth its measure save He, the Most High, the All-Exalted.

And I bear witness that Muhammad—may the blessings of God be upon him and upon his kindred—is His servant and His Messenger, chosen in creation above all similitudes, selected in origination above all resemblances. God hath manifested him, through the loftiness of his own reality, with the majesty of His own Self; and hath established him, in the might of His sovereignty, by the splendor of His essence, in the station of His love—so that none is known beside him, and none can be described by his creation. There is none other God but Him, even as He hath borne witness concerning Muhammad, His Beloved, in creation; and He is the Great, the All-Exalted.

And I bear witness to the successors of Muhammad, the Most Great Family of God, even as God bore witness unto Muhammad—may the blessings of God be upon him and upon his kindred—in the dawning-place of separation; without a letter of that inmost essence from which He caused them to be severed, by the secret of His response. Wherefore may God’s blessings be upon them, according to what the knowledge of God hath encompassed concerning them. Verily, He is sanctified above resemblances and likenesses.

And I bear witness—unto all—according as the Book, in the presence of the All-Merciful, hath borne witness: there is none other God but Him, the Most High, the All-Exalted. Glorified be God, the Lord of the Gate, above that which they ascribe! I have offered, in this sermon, my greetings unto the people of creation; and, as my Lord hath willed, verily He encompasseth all things. There is no power and no might save in God, the Most High, the Most Great.

In such wise let the unity-proclaimers write. Say: O ye that worship at the Sacred Waymarks! Bring forth your proof, if ye be of them that speak the truth. And praise be unto God, the Lord of all worlds.