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English translation

Know that there is agreement among the People of the Sunnah and the Community and the people of verification and gnosis that faith has a root and a branch: its root is affirmation in the heart, and its branch is the observance of the command. It is the custom of the Arabs to call the branch of a thing, by way of metaphor, by the name of its root, just as the light of the sun is called 'sun' in all languages. And in that same sense a group call obedience 'faith,' for the servant does not become secure from punishment except through it, and mere affirmation does not necessitate security until one carries out the rulings of the command. So whoever has more obedience, his security from punishment is greater; since that became the cause of security, together with affirmation and profession, they called it faith.

Again, this other group said: the cause of security is gnosis, not obedience. Even if obedience is present, when gnosis does not exist it is of no benefit; and when gnosis exists, even if obedience is absent, in the end the servant attains salvation—though his ruling is within [God's] will—for God, mighty and majestic, either overlooks his slip by His grace, or forgives him by the intercession of the Prophet (peace be upon him), or punishes him to the measure of his crime and then sends him to Paradise. So since they are people of gnosis, even if they are sinners, by the ruling of gnosis they do not remain eternally in Hell; and the people of works, by works alone without gnosis, do not enter Paradise. So here obedience was not the cause of security, as the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) said: 'None of you will be saved by his works.' It was said: 'Not even you, O Messenger of God?' He said: 'Not even I, unless God envelops me in His mercy.'

[Persian gloss:] 'None of you is saved by his own works.' They said: 'You too will not be saved by your own works, O Messenger of God?' He said: 'I too will not be saved, unless God, mighty and majestic, overlooks by His mercy.'

So in reality, without dispute among the community, 'faith is gnosis and profession and acceptance of works.' And whoever knows Him knows Him by an attribute of His attributes, and the most special of His attributes are of three kinds: some relate to beauty (jamal), some to majesty (jalal), and some to perfection (kamal). Now creatures have no way to His perfection, except to affirm perfection of Him and negate deficiency from Him. There remain here beauty and majesty. The one whose witness in gnosis is the beauty of the Truth is continually longing for the vision; and the one whose witness is the majesty of the Truth is continually in aversion to his own attributes, his heart being in the place of awe. So longing is the effect of love, and aversion to human attributes likewise, because the unveiling of the veil of the human attribute is only through the very essence of love. So faith and gnosis became love, and the sign of love is obedience—because when the heart is the place of love, and the eye the place of the vision of admonition, and the heart the site of contemplation, the body must not forsake the command; and whoever forsakes the command is ignorant of gnosis.

And this affliction appeared in our age among the Sufis: a group of heretics saw their beauty and recognized their worth and rank, made themselves resemble them, and said: 'This toil lasts only as long as you have not known; once you know, the burden falls away.'

We say: No, rather, when you know, the heart becomes the place of exaltation. The exaltation of the command increases, and we allow that the obedient one may reach a degree where the toil of obedience is lifted from him, and carrying out the command gives him more divine enabling, so that what people perform with toil is no toil for him to perform. And this can only be through a longing that is disquieting and agitating.

And again a group say faith is entirely from the Truth, and a group say entirely from the servant. And this dispute among people has stretched long, as far as Transoxiana (Mawara al-Nahr). So the one who says it is entirely from Him is pure compulsion (jabr), because the servant must be coerced therein; and the one who says it is entirely from himself is pure free-decree (qadar), because the servant does not know Him except through His informing. And the path of divine unity (tawhid) is below compulsion and above free-decree. In truth, faith is the act of the servant conjoined with the guidance of the Truth—for the one He has led astray cannot find the way, and the one He has brought to the way is not lost—for His saying, exalted: 'So whoever God wishes to guide, He expands his breast for Islam; and whoever He wishes to lead astray, He makes his breast constricted and tight.' (al-An'am 125)

So upon this principle it must be that the inclination [to believe] is the guidance of the Truth, and believing is the act of the servant. So the sign of believing is, upon the heart, the conviction of tawhid; upon the eye, guarding from forbidden things and taking admonition in the signs and verses; upon the ear, listening to His speech; upon the stomach, emptying from what He has forbidden; upon the tongue, truthfulness of speech; and upon the body, abstaining from forbidden things—so that the claim conforms with the meaning. And from this it was that that group allowed increase and decrease in faith. And there is agreement among all that in gnosis increase and decrease are not allowed, for if gnosis increased and decreased, the known object would have to increase and decrease. Since increase and decrease are not allowed upon the known object, they are not allowed upon gnosis either, for a deficient gnosis is not gnosis. So increase and decrease must be in works and the branch. And by agreement, increase and decrease in obedience—which is in works and the branch—are allowed. And for the Hashwiyya, who ascribe [faith] to both parties, this is hard upon the heart; for of the Hashwiyya a group say obedience is part of faith, and again a group say faith is nothing but mere profession, and both of these are a lack of fairness.

In sum, faith in reality is the immersion of all the servant's attributes in seeking the Truth. And all believers must agree upon this: that the dominance of the sultan of gnosis is the vanquisher of the attributes of denial, and where there is faith the causes of denial are negated—for they have said: 'When morning rises, the lamp is nullified (idha tala'a al-sabah batala al-misbah).' When dawn spread, the beauty of the lamp became nothing, and He showed the day by clear proof—as they have said: 'There is no proof clearer than the bright day.' His saying, exalted: 'Indeed, kings, when they enter a town, ruin it.' (al-Naml 34) When the reality of gnosis is achieved in the heart of the gnostic, the domain of conjecture and doubt and denial perishes, and its sultan makes his senses and desire subject to itself, so that in whatever he does and says and looks upon, all is within the circle of the command.

And I found that Ibrahim al-Khawwas was asked about the reality of faith. He said: 'Now I have no answer for this, because whatever I say will be [mere] expression, and I must answer by [practical] dealing. But I intend [to go to] Mecca, and you too have this resolve; on this road keep company with me, so that you may find the answer to your question.' He said: I did so. When I descended into the desert, every night two loaves and two draughts of water appeared. One he gave to me and one he ate—until one day in the midst of the desert an old man came riding. When he saw him, he dismounted from the horse, and they greeted one another and spoke for a while, and the old man mounted and returned. I said: 'O Shaykh, tell me who that old man was.' He said: 'That was the answer to your question.' I said: 'How?' He said: 'That was Khidr the prophet (peace be upon him), who sought my company, and I did not accept—for I feared that in that companionship I would rely on other than the Truth with him, and it would sully my trust (tawakkul).' And the reality of faith is the preservation of trust in God, mighty and majestic. His saying, exalted: 'And upon God rely, if you are believers.' (al-Ma'idah 23)

And Muhammad ibn Khafif says, may God's mercy be upon him: 'Faith is the heart's affirmation of what it has been informed of the unseen (al-iman tasdiq al-qalb bima a'lamahu al-ghuyub).' Faith is the heart's belief in what is unveiled to it and taught to it in the unseen. And faith in the unseen and in God, exalted, absent from the physical eye, cannot be made manifest in the servant's certainty except by divine power, and that is only through God's informing—since the one who makes known and teaches the gnostics and the learned is He, majestic His majesty and general His bounty, who created gnosis and knowledge in their hearts and cut off its attribution from their acquisition. So whoever holds his heart to believe in the gnosis of the Truth is a believer.

And because I have much discourse on this subject elsewhere in this book, I have here restricted myself to this measure, so that the book does not become lengthy; and also, if it be the guidance of the Truth, this amount will suffice. Now let us return to the beginning of [practical] dealings and unveil their veils, so that seekers may have benefits, God willing.