Original content

English translation

Know—may God strengthen you—that this [matter of sainthood] is well-established among the people, and the Book and the Sunna proclaim it. For God, the Exalted, has said: ‚Behold, verily the friends (awliya) of God, no fear shall be upon them, neither shall they grieve‘ (Yunus 10:62); and He also said: ‚We are your protectors (awliya) in the life of this world‘ (Fussilat 41:31); and in another place He said: ‚God is the protector (wali) of those who believe‘ (al-Baqara 2:257).

And the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, said: ‚Among the servants of God are servants whom the prophets and martyrs envy.‘ It was asked: ‚Who are they, O Messenger of God? Describe them to us that we might love them.‘ He, peace be upon him, said: ‚A people who love one another by the spirit of God, without wealth or acquisitions; their faces are light upon pulpits of light; they fear not when people fear, nor grieve when people grieve.‘ Then he recited: ‚Behold, verily the friends of God, no fear shall be upon them, neither shall they grieve‘ (Yunus 10:62).

And the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, also said that God, Mighty and Majestic, said: ‚Whoever harms a friend (wali) of Mine has declared himself lawful to war against Me.‘

And the intent of this is that you may know that God, Mighty and Majestic, has friends (awliya) whom He has singled out for His love and protection (walaya), and they are the governors of His kingdom, whom He has chosen and made the sign of the manifestation of His act, and singled out with various kinds of miracles (karamat), and purified from natural afflictions, and delivered from following their carnal soul (nafs); so that their aspiration is for none but Him, and their intimacy is with none but Him. They existed before us in past ages, and now they exist, and after this they will continue to exist until the Day of Resurrection—because God, the Exalted, has honored this community above all communities and has guaranteed, saying, ‚I shall preserve the Sharia of Muhammad, may God bless him.‘ Since the transmitted proof (burhan khabari) and the rational arguments (hujaj aqli) exist today among the scholars, there must also be an ocular proof (burhan ayni) present among the saints and the elect of God, the Exalted.

And this disagreement of ours is with two groups: one, the Mu'tazila, and the other, the common Hashwiyya.

The Mu'tazila deny the singling out of one over another among the believers, and the very singling out of a saint is [like] the singling out of a prophet, and this [denial] is unbelief. And the common Hashwiyya permit the singling out, but they say: ‚They existed, but today none remain.‘ And denial of the past and of the future are one and the same, for one side of the denial is no more fitting than the other.

So God, the Exalted, has made the prophetic proof abiding today, and made the saints the means of its manifestation, so that the signs of the Truth and the proof of the veracity of Muhammad, peace be upon him, remain manifest; and He has made them the governors of the world so that they have become devoted purely to His remembrance and have folded up the road of following the carnal soul—so that by their blessing rain falls from the sky, and by the purity of their states vegetation grows from the earth, and the Muslims gain victory over the unbelievers by their aspiration.

Their description and number: Of them are four thousand who are hidden (maktumun), who do not know one another, nor even know the beauty of their own state, and in all states are veiled from themselves and from creation; and the reports are transmitted concerning this, and the speech of the saints proclaims it—and I myself have had clear knowledge of this matter, praise be to God. But as for those who are the people of loosing and binding (ahl-e hall wa aqd) and the officers of the court of the Truth, may His majesty be glorified: they are three hundred, who are called the Akhyar; and forty others, who are called the Abdal; and seven others, who are called the Abrar; and four, who are called the Awtad; and three others, who are called the Nuqaba; and one, who is called the Qutb and the Ghawth. And all these know one another, and in [their] affairs are dependent upon one another's permission; and the transmitted reports proclaim this, and the people of the Sunna are agreed on its soundness, and the intent in this place is not its explanation and elaboration.

Here the common folk raise an objection—because I said: ‚They know one another, since each of them is a saint.‘ They say: ‚Then they must be secure regarding their [final] outcome.‘ And this is absurd, for knowledge of saintship does not entail security. Since it is permissible that a believer be knowing of his faith yet not secure, it is permissible that a saint be knowing of his saintship yet not secure. But it is permissible that, by way of miraculous grace, God, the Exalted, make the saint acknowledge the security of his outcome, together with the soundness of his state and his preservation from opposition [to God].

And here the shaykhs, may God be pleased with them, differ, and I have made clear the cause of the difference. Whoever is of those four thousand who are hidden does not permit the saint's knowledge of himself, and whoever is of that other group permits it; and many of the jurists too agree with that group, and many with this; and likewise among the theologians. Master Abu Ishaq al-Isfarayini and a group of the earlier authorities hold that the saint does not know himself to be a saint; and Master Abu Bakr ibn Furak and another group of the earlier authorities hold that the saint does know himself to be a saint.

We say to that group: ‚What harm and affliction is there for him in knowing himself?‘ They say: ‚He becomes conceited about himself when he knows that he is a saint.‘ We say: The condition of saintship is the preservation of the Truth, and one who is preserved from affliction—this [conceit] does not befall him. And this is an exceedingly worthless, vulgar saying—that someone be a saint, and miracles breaking the customary order pass by him, and he not know that he is a saint and that these are miracles!

And a group of the common folk have imitated this group, and some the other group, and their speech is not to be reckoned with.

But the Mu'tazila deny the whole of the singling out of miracles, whereas the reality of saintship is the singling out of miracles; and they say: ‚All Muslims are the friends of God, His majesty be glorified, when they are obedient; for whoever performs the ordinances of the faith, and denies the attributes of God and the vision of Him, and permits the eternity of a believer in Hell, and affirms the permissibility of moral obligation upon mere reason without the coming of messengers and the sending down of books—he is a saint according to all Muslims.‘ Such a one is indeed a saint—but a saint of Satan.

And they say: ‚If saintship necessitated a miracle, then all believers must have a miracle, since they share in faith; and since they share in the root, they must also share in the branch.‘

And then they say: ‚It is permissible that both a believer and an unbeliever have a miracle, such as hunger on a journey when a host appears, or a weary one whom someone seats upon a mount, and the like.‘

And they say: ‚If it were permissible that someone traverse a distance in one night, then it would have to be [a mark] of a prophet. When the Prophet, peace be upon him, set out for Mecca, God, the Exalted, said: And it carries your burdens to a land you could not have reached save with hardship of soul (al-Nahl 16:7).‘

We say: Your statement is utterly false, for the Truth, the Exalted, said: ‚Glory be to Him who carried His servant by night... [to the end of] the verse‘ (al-Isra 17:1).

But the meaning of the carrying of burdens and the gathering of the Companions in going to Mecca was that miracles are particular (khass), not general (amm); and had they all gone to Mecca by miracles, it would have become general, and the unseen faith would have become compulsory, and all states and ordinances would have been abolished—because faith is in the domain of generality, wherein are the obedient and the disobedient, while saintship is in the domain of particularity. So God, the Exalted, regarding that which He set as a ruling in the domain of generality, commanded the Prophet, may God bless him, in conformity with them, to carry burdens; and that which He set as a ruling in the domain of particularity, He conveyed His Prophet in one night from Mecca to Jerusalem, and from there to ‚two bows' length‘ and the corners and hidden recesses of the world He showed to him, and when he returned much of the night still remained—and in sum it was within the ruling of particular faith, indeed most particular faith; and the denial of particularization is stubborn contention against the evident. Just as at the court of a king there are a doorkeeper, a chamberlain, a groom, and a vizier—though in the ruling of servanthood they are equal, yet some have a special distinction (khassiyat). So too, though the believers are equal in the reality of faith, yet one is disobedient and another obedient, one a scholar and one a devotee. Thus it is established that the denial of particularization is the denial of all meanings. And God knows best.