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The masters of this path each have a symbolic saying (ramz) concerning this matter, and I shall bring their sayings into this book as far as possible, God willing, the Almighty and Glorious.

One of the later masters says: 'The poor man (faqir) is not he who is empty of provisions; rather, the poor man is he who is empty of desire (murad).'

The poor man is not he whose hand is empty of goods and provisions; the poor man is he whose nature is empty of desire. So that if God Most High gives him wealth, if his desire is to keep the wealth he is rich, and if his desire is to abandon the wealth he is also rich; for both are acts of disposal (tasarruf) over the property of Another, and poverty is the abandonment of disposal.

Yahya ibn Mu'adh says, may God be pleased with him: 'The sign of poverty is the fear of poverty.'

The sign of the soundness of poverty is that the servant, in the perfection of sainthood (walaya), the maintenance of contemplation, and the annihilation of attribute, fears the passing away and the severance of his state. Thus he reaches the perfection of it by fearing the severance.

Ruwaym says, God's mercy upon him: 'Among the qualities of the poor man are the guarding of his secret, the protection of his self, and the performance of his religious duties.'

He whose inner secret is guarded from selfish aims, whose body is protected from afflictions, and upon whom the ordinances of the religious duties run; such that what passes over the secrets does not preoccupy the outward, and what passes over the outward does not preoccupy the secrets, and the overwhelming of it does not withhold him from discharging the command. This is the sign of the removal of human nature, so that the whole servant becomes in accord with the Truth, and this too comes about through the Truth.

Bishr al-Hafi says, God's mercy upon him: 'The most excellent of the stations is holding fast to patience in poverty until the grave.'

To hold fast to the continuance of patience in dervishhood — and this patience and this holding fast are among the stations of the servant, while poverty is the annihilation of the stations. So holding fast to patience in poverty is a sign of seeing the affliction of works and a mark of the annihilation of attributes; but the outward meaning of this saying is the preferment of poverty over wealth and the resolve that 'I will never turn my face from the path of poverty.'

Shibli says, God's mercy upon him: 'The poor man is not made rich by anything other than God.'

The dervish finds no repose in anything other than the Truth, since nothing but Him is their desire and object. The outward sense of the wording is that you find riches through none but Him; when you have found Him you have become rich. Now your own existence is other than Him; since you cannot find riches through what is other than Him, you yourself have become the veil of riches, and when you rise up out of the way, who then is the rich one? This meaning is exceedingly abstruse and subtle to the people of this matter, and the true meaning of it is: 'Poverty is that from which one is never made independent' — that is, poverty is that for which there is never any riches.

And this is the meaning of what that elder said — may God be pleased with him: 'Our grief is everlasting. Never will our aspiration attain its object, nor will our totality become nothing, in this world or the next'; for to attain something requires homogeneity, and He is of no genus; and to turn away from His discourse requires heedlessness, and the dervish is not heedless. So it is an ever-fallen captivity, a difficult road come upon, and it is a love with One to whom no one has a way of beholding, whose union is not, by way of genus, within the power of creatures — neither is there change of form upon annihilation (fana), nor is alteration permissible upon subsistence (baqa). Shall the annihilated ever become subsistent so that there be union, or the subsistent become annihilated so that there be nearness? The affair of His friends is from beginning to end thus. To console the heart they have fashioned an ornamented expression, and to give repose to the soul they have made manifest the stations, the way-stations, and the path. Their expressions are from self to self, their stations from genus to genus, and God Most High is far exalted above the attributes and states of creatures.

And Abu'l-Hasan al-Nuri, God's mercy upon him, says: 'The quality of the poor man is stillness in the absence of things and giving in their presence.'

When they do not find, they are silent, and when they find, they deem another more deserving of it than themselves and give it away. So he whose object is a morsel — when he is kept from his object, his heart is still, and when that morsel appears, whomever he deems more deserving of it than himself, to him he gives it. In this saying there are two meanings: his stillness in the state of absence is contentment (rida), and his giving in the state of presence is love (mahabba); for the contented one is fit to receive the robe of honor, and in the robe of honor is the sign of nearness, while love is the abandoner of the robe of honor, for in the robe of honor is the sign of separation. His stillness in absence is the awaiting of presence, and when it came into being, that existent thing was other than Him, and he had no repose with the other, so he abandoned it. And this is the meaning of the saying of the master of masters, Abu'l-Qasim al-Junayd ibn Muhammad — may God be pleased with him: 'Poverty is the emptying of the heart from forms.' When the heart is empty of the thought of form, and a form is present, what recourse is there but to cast it away?

Shibli says, God's mercy upon him: 'Poverty is the sea of affliction, and its affliction is all glory.'

Dervishhood is the sea of affliction, and its afflictions are all glory. Glory is the portion of the other; the afflicted one is in the very midst of affliction — what does he know of glory? until, when he looks from the affliction to the One who sends it, then his affliction wholly becomes glory, and his glory wholly the spiritual moment (waqt), and his moment wholly love, and his love wholly contemplation; until the brain becomes the seat of vision from the prevailing of imagination; until, without an eye, he becomes a seer, and, without an ear, a hearer. And very precious is the servant who bears the burden of the Beloved's affliction; for affliction is glory in reality, and blessing is abasement in reality — because glory is that which makes the servant present with the Truth, and abasement is that which makes him absent. And the affliction of poverty is a sign of presence, and the ease of wealth is a sign of absence. So he who is present with the Truth is glorious, and he who is absent from the Truth is abased. This meaning, whose affliction is contemplation and whose adversity is intimacy — attachment to it under any attribute whatsoever is a gain (ghanima).

Junayd says, God's mercy upon him: 'O company of the poor, you are known through God and honored for God's sake; so consider how you are with God when you are alone with Him.'

O you who are dervishes, people know you through your Lord and honor you for His sake. Consider how you are with Him in solitude; that is, when people call you a dervish, they have rendered you your due — how then will you render the due of the path of dervishhood? And if people call you by another name contrary to your claim, do not regard that as coming from them, for you too are not doing justice to your own claim; for there is none more backward than one whom people reckon to belong to Him while he does not belong to Him, and blessed is he whom people reckon to belong to Him and who does belong to Him, and more precious still is he whom people do not reckon to belong to the Truth while he does belong to the Truth. The likeness of one whom people reckon to belong to Him while he does not belong to Him is like one who lays claim to being a physician and treats the sick, yet when he himself falls ill needs another physician. And the likeness of one whom people reckon to belong to the Truth and who does belong to the Truth is like one who lays claim to being a physician and treats the sick, and when he himself falls ill knows how to prepare his own remedy. And the likeness of one whom people do not reckon to belong to the Truth while he does belong to the Truth is like one who is a physician of whom people have no knowledge, and who, being free from the preoccupation of people, keeps himself with suitable foods, good drinks, agreeable tonics, and mild, wholesome airs so that he does not fall ill, while the eyes of people are closed to all his states.

And some of the later ones have said: 'Poverty is non-existence without existence.'

But expression concerning this saying is cut off, because the non-existent is not a thing, and one cannot make expression except concerning a thing. So here the picture would be that poverty is no thing at all — yet the expressions and the consensus of all the friends of God Most High do not rest upon a principle that is in its own essence annihilated and non-existent. Here, by these expressions, they do not intend the non-existence of the essence, but rather the non-existence of the affliction from the essence — for all the attributes of the human being are affliction, and when the affliction is negated, that is the annihilation of attribute, and the annihilation of attribute removes from before them the instrument of attaining and not-attaining; to them non-existence shows the manner of the negation of the essence, and in that they perish.

And I saw a group of the theologians (mutakallimun) who had not grasped the picture of this and were laughing at it, saying: 'This speech is not reasonable.' And I saw a group of pretenders who had adopted belief in something unreasonable while the root of the matter was not known to them, and they were saying: 'Poverty is non-existence without existence.' And both groups were in error. One of them, through ignorance, denied the Truth, and the other made ignorance into a spiritual state and thereby made manifest...