Original content

English translation

God Most High gathered creation together in the call; His saying, exalted be He: 'And God calls to the abode of peace' (Yunus 10:25). Then He separated them regarding the matter of guidance and said, exalted be He: 'And He guides whom He wills to a straight path' (Yunus 10:25). He summoned all by way of the call, and He drove away a group by the decree that manifests His will. He gathered together and commanded all, and He separated and consigned a group to abandonment; some He made receptive through divine enabling. And again He gathered by prohibition and separated: a group He granted protection, and a group He gave inclination toward affliction. So in this sense 'union' (jam') is the reality, the known secret, and the will of the Truth, while 'separation' (tafriqa) is the manifestation of His command; just as He commanded Abraham, 'Cut the throat of Ishmael,' yet willed that he not cut it; and He said to Iblis, 'Prostrate to Adam,' yet willed that he not do it, and he did not do it. And there are many like this. 'Union is what He gathered by His attributes, and separation is what He divided by His acts.' All of this is the severance of the will and the abandonment of any interference by creation in affirming the will of the Truth.

Regarding the measure that we have mentioned about union and separation, there is consensus among all the people of the Sunna and the community, apart from the Mu'tazila, together with the masters of this path. But beyond this, in the use of this expression they differ: one group applies it to Divine Oneness, another to the attributes, and another to the acts. Those who apply it to Divine Oneness say: union has two degrees, one concerning the attributes of the Truth, and the other concerning the attributes of the servant. That which concerns the attributes of the Truth is the secret of Divine Oneness, from which the servant's acquisition is severed; and that which concerns the attributes of the servant is an expression of Divine Oneness through sincerity of intention and soundness of resolve. This is the saying of Abu Ali al-Rudbari.

Another group, those who apply it to the attributes, say: union is an attribute of the Truth and separation is His act, and the servant's acquisition is severed from it, since in His divinity He has no rival. So union is His Essence and His attributes, since 'union is equivalence in the source,' and nothing but His Essence and attributes is equal in pre-eternity, and in their differentiation by expression and by the ranking of creation there is no gathering. The meaning of this is that He, exalted be He, has attributes that are pre-eternal, and He, exalted be God, is distinguished by them; their subsistence is through Him and their existence belongs exclusively to Him. He and His attributes are not two, for in His unity neither division nor number is permissible; and by this rule union is permissible only in this sense. 'As for separation, it is in the decree' — these are the acts of the Lord, exalted be He, which are all differentiated in decree: one has the decree of existence, and another the decree of nonexistence, being merely possible in existence; one has the decree of annihilation, and another the decree of subsistence.

Again another group applies it to knowledge and says: 'Union is the knowledge of Divine Oneness, and separation is the knowledge of the rulings.' So the knowledge of the principles is union, and the derivative branches from it are separation. Similar to this, one of the masters, may God's mercy be upon him, has also said: 'Union is that upon which the people of knowledge agree, and separation is that in which they differ.'

Again, the majority of the verifiers of Sufism — may God brighten their faces — in the currents of their expressions and symbols mean by the word 'separation' the earnings (of striving), and by 'union' the gifts; that is, striving (mujahada) and contemplation (mushahada). So whatever the servant attains by way of striving is all separation, and whatever is the pure grace and guidance of the Truth Most High is union. The servant's glory lies in this: that amid the existence of his own acts and the possibility of striving, through the beauty of the Truth he is delivered from the affliction of act, and finds his own acts submerged in the bounty of the Truth, and his striving negated in the matter of guidance, and his entire subsistence resting upon the Truth; and the Truth Most High becomes the transformer of his attributes. His act is entirely referred back to the Truth, so that he is delivered from the ascription of acquisition to himself; as the Prophet, upon him be peace, informed us, his saying, upon him be peace, reporting from God Most High: 'My servant continues to draw near to Me through supererogatory acts until I love him; and when I love him, I become his hearing and his seeing and his hand and his support and his tongue: through Me he hears, through Me he sees, through Me he speaks, and through Me he grasps.'

When Our servant draws near to Us through striving, We bring him to Our love, and We annihilate his existence within him, and We wipe away the ascription of his acts from him, so that through Us he hears what he hears, and through Us he says what he says, and through Us he sees what he sees, and through Us he grasps what he grasps; that is, in the remembrance of Us he becomes overcome by the remembrance of Us, his acquisition is annihilated in his remembrance, the remembrance of Us becomes the sovereign of his remembrance, and the ascription of humanity is severed from his remembrance. So his remembrance becomes the remembrance of Us; until in the state of overwhelming he attains that condition of which Abu Yazid, may God's mercy be upon him, said: 'Glory be to me! Glory be to me! How great is my majesty!' The one who said it was but the sign of the speech, and the speaker was the Truth; as the Messenger of God, upon him be peace, said: 'The Truth speaks upon the tongue of Umar.'

The reality of this is such that when a compulsion from the Truth manifests His sovereignty over the human being, over his existence, He takes him from himself; so that this speech becomes entirely His speech by transmutation — without there being for the Truth, exalted and sanctified be He, any commingling with created things, or union with fashioned things, or His being an indwelling state within things. Exalted be God above that, and above what the heretics ascribe, by a great exaltation.

So it is permissible that love from the Truth becomes sovereign over the heart of the servant, and by its overwhelming and excess the intellect and natural faculties become incapable of bearing it, and his command falls away from his acquisition. Then this degree is called union; just as when the Messenger, upon him be peace, was submerged and overcome, an act issued from him, God Most High removed the ascription of that act from him and said: 'That act was Mine, not your act, though it bore the sign of your act. And you did not throw when you threw, but God threw' (al-Anfal 8:17). 'O Muhammad, that handful of dust into the face of the enemy — you did not throw it; I threw it.' Likewise, from the same kind, an act issued from David, upon him be peace, and He said to him: 'And David slew Goliath' (al-Baqara 2:251). 'O David, you slew Goliath.' And this was in the separation of the state. There is a difference between one who ascribes his act to himself while being a locus of affliction and accidents, and one who ascribes his act to himself while being pre-eternal and free of affliction.

So when an act appears in a human being that is not of the kind of the acts of human beings, inevitably its agent is the Truth, majestic and exalted; and miracles (mu'jizat) and saintly wonders (karamat) are all conjoined with this. So the customary acts are all separation, and the breaking of custom is union; since to travel to 'the distance of two bows' lengths' in a single night is not customary, and that is nothing but the act of the Truth, and not to be burned by fire is not customary, and that is nothing but the act of the Truth. So the Truth Most High granted His prophets and His saints these wonders, and ascribed His own act to them, and drew them to Himself thereby. Since the act of the beloveds was His act, and their pledge was His pledge, and their obedience was His obedience, He said — mighty is the Speaker: 'Indeed, those who pledge allegiance to you only pledge allegiance to God' (al-Fath 48:10); and He also said: 'Whoever obeys the Messenger has obeyed God' (al-Nisa 4:80). So His saints are united in their inner secrets and separated in the outward manifestation of their conduct; so that through the union of secrets the love is made firm, and through the separation of manifestation the establishment of servanthood is made sound. As one of the great masters says, concerning the state of union, may God be pleased with him:

I became realized through my inmost secret, so my tongue conversed intimately with You, We united for meanings, and we parted for meanings; For if magnification has veiled You from the glance of my sight, Yet ecstasy has made You, from within my very entrails, near.

He called the union of secrets 'union,' and the intimate converse of the tongue 'separation,' and then he marked both union and separation within himself, and set down its principle for himself; and this is exceedingly subtle.