Original content

English translation

And among them: the lamp of the age and overseer of the afflictions of divine wrath, Abu al-Hasan Ahmad ibn Abi al-Hawari, may Allah be pleased with him.

He was among the masters of Syria and praised by all the masters, to the extent that Junayd said: 'Ahmad ibn Abi al-Hawari is the sweet basil of Syria (rayhanat al-Sham).'

He has lofty discourse and subtle allusions in the branches of the knowledge of this path, and sound narrations from the Hadith of the Prophet, peace be upon him. The people of his time referred to him in their spiritual states. He was a disciple of Abu Sulayman al-Darani, may Allah be pleased with him, and had kept the company of Sufyan ibn Uyayna, Marwan ibn Muawiya al-Fazari, and al-Nabaji, taking manners and benefit from each of them.

And it is related from him that he said: 'The world is a dungheap and a gathering-place of dogs, and lower than dogs is he who devotes himself to it; for the dog takes what it needs from it and turns away, whereas the one who loves it never leaves it in any state.' The world is like a dungheap and a place where dogs gather, and lower than dogs is he who stands over the heap of worldly goods; for the dog fulfills its need from the dungheap and departs, while the lover of the world never turns away from amassing it. It was because of the world's contemptibility in the eyes of that chivalrous man's aspiration that he likened the world to a dungheap and its people to something lower than dogs, and he gave as the reason that when the dog takes its share from the dungheap it passes beyond it; but the people of the world are perpetually seated over amassing the world and never turn back from loving and gathering it. This is a sign of his severance from the world and its likes, and his turning away from its people; and for the people of this path, detachment from the world is a pleasant space and a joyful garden.

In his beginning he sought knowledge and reached the rank of the imams. Then he took up his books and carried them to the sea and said: 'What an excellent guide you were! But to occupy oneself with the guide after arrival is absurd.'

What a fine guide and leader you are for the disciple; but after reaching the goal, being occupied with the guide is absurd; for the guide is [needed] only so long as the disciple is on the way. When the presence-chamber appears, what value have the threshold and the road?

And the masters have said: this was [spoken] in the state of intoxication (sukr); and on this path, whoever said 'I have arrived' has indeed become separated, for arriving would be a stopping-short. So occupation is occupation and leisure is leisure, and union is union: union is not bound up with occupation or leisure, for these two are both attributes of the servant, whereas union is the grace of the Truth and His pre-eternal will toward the good will of the servant, and this does not come about through the servant's occupation or leisure. So his union has no [attainable] roots, and constancy, nearness, and adjacency are not properly [ascribed] to him. His union is an honoring of the servant, and his separation is a humiliation of him; change in His attributes is not permissible.

And Ali ibn Uthman al-Jullabi, may Allah be pleased with him, says thus: it is possible that what that great elder meant by the word 'arrival' was arrival at the way of the Truth; because the way of the Truth is not in books, for books are of expressions, and when the path becomes clear, expression is cut off; for expression has only so much force as exists in the absence of the goal—when direct witnessing is attained, expression disintegrates. Since in the soundness of gnosis tongues are dumb before expression, books are all the more fit to be discarded. And among the masters, may Allah be pleased with them, others besides him did the same—such as the master of masters Abu Sa'id Fadlallah ibn Muhammad al-Mayhani, may Allah have mercy on him, and others—who gave their books to the water. And a group of formalists, out of laziness and in support of ignorance, imitated those free ones (ahrar) in that; but it is likely that those free ones intended by it nothing but the severance of attachments and the abandonment of attention and the emptying of the heart from all that is below Him. And this comes right only from the intoxication of the beginning and the fire of spiritual childhood; for one who is firmly established (mutamakkin) is not veiled by the two worlds—nor would a scrap of paper veil him. When the heart has been severed from attachments, what value has a scrap of paper?

But as for one who says: 'the washing of the book means the negation of expression from the verification of meaning'—as we have said, then it would be more fitting that expression be negated from the tongue as well; because in the book there is a written expression and on the tongue there is a current expression, and one expression is no more fitting to keep than another.

And it appears thus to me: that Ahmad ibn Abi al-Hawari, may Allah's mercy be upon him, in the overpowering of his spiritual state, found no listener and wrote the account of his state on scraps of paper. When much of it had accumulated, he found no worthy person to whom he might publish it. So he cast it into the water and said: 'You were a fine guide; but since the goal has been obtained from you, occupying oneself with you is absurd.' And it is also possible that the books were keeping him from his litanies (awrad) and spiritual practices and occupying him, so he removed the occupation from before himself and sought emptiness of heart for the sake of the meaning, and abandoned expressions.