Original content

English translation

And among them: the heaven of gnosis and the angel of love, Abu Yazid Tayfur ibn Isa al-Bastami, may Allah be pleased with him.

He was among the greatest of the masters; his spiritual state was the loftiest of them all and his rank the most exalted, so much so that Junayd said, may Allah's mercy be upon him: 'Abu Yazid among us is like Gabriel among the angels.'

His grandfather had been a Zoroastrian, and his father was one of the notables of Bastam. He has lofty narrations of the Prophet's traditions, peace be upon him. Of the ten famous imams of Sufism he was one, and no one has had greater capacity for deducing the realities of this science than he had. In all his states he was a lover of knowledge and an exalter of the Sacred Law, notwithstanding that a group who, to support their own heresy, fabricate and attribute a doctrine to him. In the beginning his career was founded upon spiritual striving and the practice of religious observance.

It is related from him that he said: 'I labored in spiritual striving for thirty years, and I found nothing harder upon me than knowledge and following it; and were it not for the disagreement of the scholars, I would have remained behind, for the disagreement of the scholars is a mercy, except in the isolation of divine unity (tawhid). I strove in spiritual struggle for thirty years and found nothing harder upon me than knowledge and following it; and had there been no disagreement among the scholars, I would have fallen short of all things and been unable to discharge the due of religion. The disagreement of the scholars is a mercy, except in the pure realization of divine unity. And in truth it is so, for the natural disposition is more inclined toward ignorance than toward knowledge; and with ignorance much work can be done without hardship, whereas with knowledge one cannot set down a single step without hardship. The path of the Sacred Law is far heavier and more perilous than the path of the other world. So in all your states you must be such that if you fall short of the lofty states and grave stations and drop away, you fall into the arena of the Sacred Law; and even if all is taken from you, your religious practice must remain with you, for the greatest calamity for the disciple is the abandonment of religious practice. All the claims of the pretenders are shattered against the practice of the Sacred Law, and all the masters of eloquence are laid bare before it.'

And it is related from him, may Allah's mercy be upon him, that he said: 'Paradise has no worth in the eyes of the people of love, and the people of love are veiled by their love; Paradise, however great, is a created thing, whereas His love is His uncreated attribute; and whoever falls back from the uncreated to the created is without worth.' That is, Paradise is created though it is great, and His love is His attribute, uncreated; and whoever remains behind, falling from the uncreated to the created, is without worth. So the created has no worth in the eyes of the lovers, and the lovers are veiled by their love, because the very existence of loving requires a duality, and in the root of divine unity duality takes no form. The way of the lovers is from oneness to oneness, and upon the way, loving becomes the cause of loving and the calamity of it, for in loving there must be a lover and a beloved: either God is the lover and the servant the beloved, or God is the beloved and the servant the lover. If God is the lover and the servant the beloved, the servant's existence is established in God's love; and if the servant is the lover and God the beloved, the created has no way to Him by seeking and volition. Thus the calamity of the lover's existence remains in both cases. Therefore the annihilation of the lover in the subsistence of love is more correct and complete than that his subsistence should rest on the subsistence of love.

And it is related from him, may Allah be pleased with him, that he said: 'Once I went to Mecca and saw the House standing alone. I said: The pilgrimage is not accepted, for I have seen many stones of this kind. Another time I went and saw the House and saw the Lord of the House. I said: This is still not the reality of divine unity. A third time I went, and I saw entirely the Lord of the House and not the House. It was proclaimed within my heart: O Bayazid, had you not seen yourself and had seen the whole world, there would be no idolatry; but since you do not see the whole world and you see yourself, this is idolatry.' Then I repented, and I repented also of my repentance, and I repented also of beholding my own existence.

And this is a subtle account concerning the soundness of his state, and a good sign for the masters of spiritual states; and Allah knows best.