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His saying, the Exalted: "What is with you is exhausted, and what is with God remains" (16/96, al-Nahl). And His saying, the Exalted: "Everyone upon it [the earth] shall perish, and there remains the Face of your Lord, Possessor of Majesty and Honor" (55/26-27, al-Rahman). Know that annihilation (fana) and subsistence (baqa) have one meaning in the language of knowledge and another meaning in the language of spiritual state, and the exotericists are more bewildered by no expression among expressions than by this one. Now, subsistence in the language of knowledge and according to the requirement of the lexicon is of three kinds: The first is a subsistence whose beginning is in annihilation and whose end is in annihilation — like this world, which did not exist at the start and will not exist at the end, yet exists in the present moment. The second is a subsistence that never was and then came to be and will never be annihilated — and that is Paradise and Hell, and the other world and its people. The third is a subsistence that never was such that it was not, and never will be such that it is not — and that is the subsistence of the Truth (God) and His attributes, glorified be His majesty. He, with His attributes, is eternal, ever-existing and everlasting, and the meaning of His subsistence is the permanence of His existence. Exalted is God above what the wrongdoers say. No one has any partnership with Him in His attributes. So the knowledge of annihilation is that you know the world is perishing, and the knowledge of subsistence is that you know the Hereafter is abiding; for His saying, the Exalted: "And the Hereafter is better and more abiding" (87/17, al-A'la). Here He said "more abiding" by way of emphasis, since the subsistence of the life of that world is not [subject] to annihilation. As for the subsistence of the spiritual state and its annihilation, it is that when ignorance is annihilated, knowledge inevitably subsists; and when disobedience is annihilated, obedience subsists — once the servant has attained his own knowledge and obedience. And likewise heedlessness is annihilated by the subsistence of remembrance; that is, when the servant becomes knowing of the Truth and subsists through His knowledge, he becomes annihilated from ignorance; and when he is annihilated from heedlessness, he subsists through His remembrance. And this is the dropping away of blameworthy attributes through the establishing of praiseworthy attributes. But the elect people of this affair do not intend by this expression what we have mentioned, and their allusion in this principle is not to knowledge and state; they do not apply annihilation and subsistence except in the degree of perfection of the people of sainthood — those who have been freed from the toil of spiritual struggle, and have escaped the bond of stations and the changing of states, and have arrived at the sought attainment, and have seen all that can be seen, and heard with the ear all that can be heard, and known with the heart all that can be known, and attained with the inmost secret all that can be attained; and in that attainment they have seen the affliction of that attainment, and have turned their face away from all of it, and their aim in the object of desire has become annihilated, and having reached the path, their claim has fallen away, and they have become severed from meaning, and miracles have become a veil, and stations have become a covering, and states have donned the garment of affliction, and in the very essence of the desired object they have remained without desire from the object, and their drinking-place has fallen away from all, and intimacy with familiar things has been rendered void; for His saying, the Exalted: "So that he who perishes might perish upon a clear proof, and he who lives might live upon a clear proof" (8/42, al-Anfal). And on this meaning I say: I annihilated my annihilation through the loss of my desire, So my desire in all affairs became Your desire. "So when the servant is annihilated from his attributes, he attains subsistence in its completeness." When the servant, in the state of the existence of attributes, became annihilated from the affliction of the attributes, he subsisted through the desired object in the annihilation of desire — until he has neither nearness nor farness, and there remains for him neither estrangement nor intimacy. There is no sobriety and intoxication, no separation and union; no effacement and being overwhelmed, no names and marks, no signs and inscriptions. On this meaning one of the shaykhs, may God be pleased with them, says: My station passed away, and the traces, both of them, So I do not see in the moment either nearness or farness. He annihilated me from myself, then He drew me near through Himself, And this is the manifestation of the Truth at the [moment of] annihilation, intentionally. In sum, annihilation from a thing is not sound except through seeing the affliction of it and negating desire for it; for whoever imagines that annihilation from a thing comes about through being veiled from that thing is in error. It is not as when a person loves a thing and says: "I subsist through it," and so long as he detests a thing says: "I am annihilated from it" — for both of these are the attribute of the seeker, and in annihilation there is no love and enmity, and in subsistence there is no vision of separation. And a group has fallen into error on this meaning and imagine that: "This annihilation means the loss of essence and the becoming-nonexistent of the person, and this subsistence is that the subsistence of the Truth joins itself to the servant." And both of these are absurd. And in India I saw a man who claimed [expertise] in exegesis and admonition and knowledge, who disputed with me on this meaning. When I looked closely, he himself did not know annihilation and subsistence, and did not distinguish the eternal from the originated. And of the ignorant of this group there are many who deem total annihilation permissible, and this is a brazen denial of the evident — for the annihilation of the parts of one's clay and their severance is never permissible. So we say to these erring and ignorant ones: "What do you mean by this annihilation?" If they say: "the annihilation of the essence," that is absurd. And if they say: "the annihilation of the attribute," that is permissible — the annihilation of one attribute through the subsistence of another attribute; for the reference of both attributes is to the servant, and it is absurd that anyone should subsist through the attribute of another. And the doctrine of the Nestorians, from among the Byzantines and Christians, is that they say: "Mary, through struggle, became annihilated from all the attributes of humanity, and the subsistence of divinity joined itself to her; and she attained subsistence through that until she subsisted through the subsistence of God, and Jesus was the result of that. And the original composition of Jesus was not from the substance of humanity; rather his subsistence was in truth the subsistence of divinity. So he and his mother and the Lord — all three — are subsisting through one subsistence, which is eternal and is the attribute of the Truth." And all of this agrees with the statement of the Hashwiyya, who are of the anthropomorphists and corporealists, who call the Essence of the Lord a locus for originated things and deem it permissible for the eternal to have an originated attribute. We say to all of them: What difference is there whether the originated is a locus of the eternal or the eternal a locus of the originated? And what difference whether the eternal has an originated attribute or the originated has an eternal attribute? The permitting of this doctrine is [the doctrine of] the eternalists (dahriyya), and it invalidates the proof for the origination of the world; and one must call either the creation and the Creator eternal, or both of them originated through the mingling of the created with the uncreated and the indwelling of the uncreated in the created. And this loss suffices them; for when they call the eternal a locus of originated things, or the originated a locus of the eternal, or the creation and the Creator eternal — then when by demonstration necessity establishes the origination of the creation, they must call their Creator originated; for the locus of a thing is as the very thing. Since it is a locus of the originated, the state too must be originated. So all of this necessitates for them either that they call the originated eternal, or the eternal originated, and both of these are misguidance. And in sum, whatever is joined, coupled, united, and mingled with a thing, the ruling of both things becomes as one. So our subsistence is our attribute and our annihilation is our attribute, and in the particularization of the attributes, our annihilation is for us like our subsistence, and our subsistence like our annihilation. So annihilation is one attribute [replaced] by the subsistence of another attribute. And again, if someone expresses annihilation such that "subsistence has no connection to it," that is permissible; and if [he expresses] subsistence such that "annihilation has no connection to it," that too is permissible — for the intent of that annihilation is the remembrance of other-than-God, and subsistence is the remembrance of the Truth. "Whoever is annihilated from the [self's] desire subsists through the [divine] desire. Whoever is annihilated from his own desire subsists through the desire of the Truth"; since your desire is perishing and the desire of the Truth is abiding. When you subsist through your own desire, your desire perishes; [your] resurrection is in annihilation. And again, when you are governed by the desire of the Truth, the desire of the Truth abides; [your] resurrection is in subsistence. And the example of this is like whatever falls into the dominion of fire: through its overpowering it becomes of its attribute. Since the dominion of fire transforms the attribute of a thing within a thing, the dominion of the Truth's will is more entitled [to do so] than the dominion of fire. But this operation of fire is upon the attribute of the iron, and it remains the very same [iron]; the iron never becomes fire. And God knows best.