"There is No Longer A Journey to Undertake, No Longer A Destination to Reach"

Sultan Bahu

Alif Allah chambe di booti, Murshid man wich laaee hoo
Nafee asbaat da pane milia, Har rage harjae hoo.
Andar booti mushk machaya, Jaan phullan te aae hoo
Jeeve Murshid Kaamil Bahu, Jain eh booti laee hoo

My Master Has Planted in My Heart the Jasmine of Allah’s Name.
Both My Denial That the Creation is Real and My Embracing of God, the Only Reality, Have Nourished the Seedling Down to its Core.
-When the Buds of Mystery Unfolded Into the Blossoms of Revelation, My Entire Being Was Filled with God’s Fragrance.
-May the Perfect Master Who Planted this Jasmine in My Heart Be Ever Blessed, O Bahu!-

Allaah parhion hafiz hoion, Na giaa hijabon pardaa hoo
Parhh parhh aalim faazil hoion, Taalib hoion zar daa hoo
Lakh hazar kitabaan parhiaan, Zaalim nafs na mardaa hoo
Baajh Faqeraan kise na mareya, Eho chor andar daa hoo

-You Have Read the Name of God Over and Over, You Have Stored the Holy Qur’an in Your Memory, But this Has Still Not Unveiled the Hidden Mystery.
-Instead, Your Learning and Scholarship Have Sharpened Your Greed for Worldly Things,
-None of the Countless Books You’ve Read in Your Life Has Destroyed Your Brutal Ego.
-Indeed, None But the Saints Can Kill this Inner Thief, for it Ravages the Very House in Which it Lives.

Alif-aihad jad dittee wiskaalee, Az khud hoiaa fane hoo
Qurb, Wisaal, Maqaam na Manzil, Na uth jism na jaanee hoo
Na uth Ishq Muhabbat kaee, Na uth kaun makanee hoo
Aino-ain theeose Bahu, Sirr Wahadat Subhanee hoo

-When the One Lord Revealed Himself to Me, I Lost Myself in Him.
-Now There is Neither Nearness Nor Union. There is No Longer A Journey to Undertake, No Longer A Destination to Reach.
-Love Attachment, My Body and Soul and Even the Very Limits of Time and Space Have All Dropped From My Consciousness.
-My Separate Self Has Merged in the Whole: in That, O Bahu, Lies the Secret of the Unity That is God!

Allaah sahee keetose jis dam, Chamkiaa Ishq agohaan hoo
Raat dihaan de taa tikhere, Kare agohaan soohaan hoo
Andae bhaaheen, Andar baalan, Andar de wch dhoohaan hoo
‘Shaah Rag’ theen Raab nerhe laddhaa, Ishq keetaa jad soohaan hoo-

-The Moment I Realized the Oneness of God, the Flame of His Love Shone Within, to Lead Me On.
-Constantly it Burns in My Heart with Intense Heat, Revealing the Mysteries Along My Path.
-This Fire of Love Burns Inside Me with No Smoke, Fuelled by My Intense Longing for the Beloved.
-Following the Royal Vein, I Found the Lord Close By. My Love Has Brought Me Face to Face with Him.

-Alif alast suniaa dil mere, Jind balaa kookendee hoo
Hubb watan dee haalib hoee, Hik pal saun na dendee hoo
Qaihar pave is raazan duneeaa, Haq daa raah marendee hoo
Aashiq mool qabool na Bahu, Zaaro zaar ruvendee hoo

-When, At the Time of Creation, God Separated Me From Himself, I Heard Him Say: “am I Not Your God?” , “indeed You Are,” Cried My Soul, Reassured. Since Then Has My Heart Flowered.
-With the Inner Urge to Return Home, Giving Me Not A Moment of Calm Here on Earth.
-May Doom Strike this World! it Robs Souls on Their Way to God.
-The World Has Never Accepted His Lovers; They Are Persecuted and Left to Cry in Pain.

http://sufipoetry.wordpress.com/poets/sultan-bahu/

Hadrat Sultan Bahu is one of the most renowned sufi saints of the later Mughal Period in the history of Indo Pakistan subcontinent. He is often called Sultanul Arifin ( the Sultan of gnostics) in the Sufi circles. His ancestors belonging to the tribe of Alvids called Awan and coming from Arabia via Hirat (Afghanistan ) had settled in the soon Sakesar Valley of Khushab District in Punjab.

His mother taught him the essential sufi exercises of dhikr (invocation of Allah and His Names ) and he probably needed no more guidance after that. He was initiated to walk the path of Sufis intuitively.  He died in 1691 A.D. at Shorkot where he was buried close to the bank of the river. His body had, however, to be transferred twice to other nearby places due to the floods. Now the place he lies buried under a beautiful tomb is called Darbar Hazrat Sultan Bahu ( District Jhang, Punjab).
 He wrote many books in Persian. He also wrote ghazals and poems in Persian as a well as Abyaat in Punjabi. His Punjabi poetry contains spiritual fervour and passionate expression of the exalted state of Divine Love. 
He was the greatest teacher and propagator of Faqr ( spiritual poverty ) which is the shining guiding star in his teachings. He may be considered one of the greatest Revealers in the history of Sufism.
His dargah has always been supervised by the Sajjadah Nashins of his own family.

http://www.ummah.com/Al_adaab/biography/sultanbahu.html

Islamic Philosophy: Knowledge is Perfection & Perfection is Happiness

Dr. Shams C. Inati

Knowledge is the intellect's grasp of the immaterial forms, the pure essences or universals that constitute the natures of things, and human happiness is achieved only through the intellect's grasp of such universals. 


They stress that for knowledge of the immaterial forms, the human intellect generally relies on the senses. Some philosophers, such as Ibn Rushd and occasionally Ibn Sina, assert that it is the material forms themselves, which the senses provide, that are grasped by the intellect after being stripped of their materiality with the help of the divine world. However, the general view as expressed by al-Farabi and Ibn Sina seems to be that the material forms only prepare the way for the reception of the immaterial forms, which are then provided by the divine world. They also state that on rare occasions the divine world simply bestows the immaterial forms on the human intellect without any help from the senses. This occurrence is known as prophecy. While all Muslim philosophers agree that grasping eternal entities ensures happiness, they differ as to whether such grasping is also necessary for eternal existence.

1. Nature of knowledge

Muslim philosophers are primarily concerned with human happiness and its attainment. Regardless of what they consider this happiness to be, all agree that the only way to attain it is through knowledge. Their intellectual inquiries, beginning with logic and ending with metaphysics and in some cases mysticism, were in the main directed towards helping to understand what knowledge is and how it comes about.


Following in the footsteps of the Greek philosophers, Muslim philosophers consider knowledge to be the grasping of the immaterial forms, natures, essences or realities of things. They are agreed that the forms of things are either material (that is, existing in matter) or immaterial (existing in themselves). While the latter can be known as such, the former cannot be known unless first detached from their materiality. Once in the mind, the pure forms act as the pillars of knowledge. The mind constructs objects from these forms, and with these objects it makes judgments. Thus Muslim philosophers, like Aristotle before them, divided knowledge in the human mind into conception (tasawwur), apprehension of an object with no judgment, and assent (tasdiq), apprehension of an object with a judgment, the latter being, according to them, a mental relation of correspondence between the concept and the object for which it stands.

2. Sources of knowledge

In Islamic philosophy there are two theories about the manner in which the number of unknown objects is reduced. One theory stresses that this reduction is brought about by moving from known objects to unknown ones, the other that it is merely the result of direct illumination given by the divine world. The former is the upward or philosophical way, the second the downward or prophetic one. The proof (al-burhan) is the method for moving from the known objects of assent to the unknown ones. The explanatory phrase and proof can be either valid or invalid: the former leads to certitude, the latter to falsehood. The validity and invalidity of the explanatory phrase and proof can be determined by logic, which is a set of rules for such determination. Thus logic is described as the key to the knowledge of the natures of things. This knowledge is described as the key to happiness; hence the special status of logic in Islamic philosophy.

3. Logic and knowledge

We are told that because logic deals only with the known and unknown, it cannot deal with anything outside the mind. In other words, logic can deal with realities only in that these realities are subjects or predicates, universal or particular, essential or accidental and so on.


Because the ultimate human objective is the understanding of the realities, essences or natures of things, and because the ultimate logical objective is the understanding of conceptions, logicians must focus on the understanding of those conceptions that lead to the understanding of the essences if they intend to serve humanity. Ibn Sina points out that since the essences are universal, such expressions are also universal in the sense of representing universal conceptions such as 'human being', not in the sense of being universal only in expression, such as 'Zayd'. A universal expression can be applied to more than one thing, as the last two examples show, but one must keep in mind Ibn Sina's distinction between these two types of universal expressions: the former represents reality, although indirectly, the latter does not. It is only the former with which the logician should be concerned (see Logic in Islamic philosophy).


Considering that the discussion of universals occupies a central place in Arabic logic, it is important to focus briefly on this subject to ensure understanding of the proper objects of the knowledge of the natures of things.

Muslim philosophers divide universal expressions into five types, known together as the five predicables: genus, species, difference, property and common accident. Genus refers to the common nature of all the species that fall under it, such as 'animality' for 'human being', 'dog', 'cat' and so on. As such, it tells us what the general nature of a thing is. Species refers to the common nature of all the individuals that fall under it, such as 'human being' for 'John', 'George' and 'Dorothy'. As such, it tells us what the specific nature of a thing is. Difference refers to that which differentiates the members of the genus, such as 'rational', which differentiates the species of being human from other animal species; it tells us which thing a being is. These three universals are essential to a thing; that is, without them the essence will not be what it is. Property and common accident are accidental, in that they attach to the thing but are not part of its essence. Property refers to something that necessarily attaches to one universal only, such as 'capacity for laughter' for 'human being'. Common accident refers to a quality that attaches to more than one universal, either in an inseparable manner, such as 'black' for 'crow', or in a separable manner, such as 'black' for 'human being'. The inseparability of the common accident, however, is only in existence.

Only the first three of the above universals constitute the essences of things. If one is to understand the essence of a thing, one must first understand its genus, species and difference or differences. The understanding of these three universals takes place through the explanatory phrase and proof, of which these universals are simple elements. The explanatory phrase is either definition or description. The definition is a phrase which mirrors the essence of a thing by indicating its general and specific essential qualities, that is, its genus, species and difference; the description is like the definition except that it indicates the property instead of the difference. Thus the description does not give a complete picture of the essence of a thing as does the definition. The proof is a set of propositions, which consist of conceptions joined or separated by particles. The proof that helps in the understanding of the essences of things is that which moves from known universal judgments to an unknown universal one.


The important question that concerned Muslim philosophers is how the universals or forms that are essential to the natures of things arrive at the human mind before it has the chance to employ the explanatory phrase and proof to compose known conceptions and known judgments from them. In order to answer this question, Muslim philosophers first discussed the structure of the human soul and then the steps through which the universals pass on their way to the place of knowledge (see Soul in Islamic philosophy). As stated above, conceptions come to the mind through either the philosophical way or the prophetic way. The philosophical way requires one first to use one's external senses to grasp the universals as they exist in the external world, mixed with matter. Then the internal senses, which like the external senses are a part of the animal soul, take in these universals and purify them of matter as much as possible. The imagination is the highest internal sense, in which these universals settle until the next cognitive move. It is from this point to the next step in the philosophical journey that the details seem particularly unclear.

4. The role of the mind

All Muslim philosophers believe that above the senses there is the rational soul. This has two parts: the practical and theoretical intellects. The theoretical intellect is responsible for knowledge; the practical intellect concerns itself only with the proper management of the body through apprehension of particular things so that it can do the good and avoid the bad. All the major Muslim philosophers, beginning with al-Kindi, wrote treatises on the nature and function of the theoretical intellect, which may be referred to as the house of knowledge.


In addition to the senses and the theoretical intellect, Muslim philosophers include in their discussion of the instruments of knowledge a third factor. They teach that the divine world contains, among other things, intelligences, the lowest of which is what al-Kindi calls the First Intellect (al-'aql al-awwal), better known in Arabic philosophy as the 'agent intellect' (al-'aql al-fa''al), the name given to it by al-Farabi (§3), or 'the giver of forms' (wahib as-suwar).

5. Philosophical and prophetic knowledge

The prophetic way is a much easier and simpler path (see Prophecy). One need not take any action to receive the divinely given universals; the only requirement seems to be the possession of a strong soul capable of receiving them. While the philosophical way moves from the imagination upward to the theoretical intellect, the prophetic way takes the reverse path, from the theoretical intellect to the imagination. For this reason, knowledge of philosophy is knowledge of the natures of things themselves, while knowledge of prophecy is knowledge of the natures of things as wrapped up in symbols, the shadows of the imagination.


Muslim philosophers agree that knowledge in the theoretical intellect passes through stages. It moves from potentiality to actuality and from actuality to reflection on actuality, thus giving the theoretical intellect the respective names of potential intellect, actual intellect and acquired intellect. Some Muslim philosophers explain that the last is called 'acquired' because its knowledge comes to it from the outside, and so it can be said to acquire it. The acquired intellect is the highest human achievement, a holy state that conjoins the human and the divine realms by conjoining the theoretical and agent intellects.


Ibn Sina rejects the view that the theoretical intellect is potential by nature. He argues instead that it is eternal by nature because unless it is, it cannot grasp the eternal objects. For him, happiness is achieved by this intellect's grasping of the eternal objects, for such grasping perfects the soul. Muslim philosophers who believe that eternity is attained only through knowledge also agree with Ibn Sina that knowledge is perfection and perfection is happiness.

Read full paper: http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H019.htm#H019BIBENT4

Shams C. Inati is a specialist in Islamic philosophy and theology with particular emphasis on Ibn Sina (Avicenna), metaphysics, and the problem of evil.  She is also a poetess and a song writer. She teaches at Villanova University, USA.

Dîn, Modernism, Evolution, Science & Transcendence

Omar K N

1.1 Definition of tradition

Therefore according to how we understand the concept from its etymological root: tradere (deliver, transmit) - Tradition has nothing to do with peoples' usages or customs from old, but is understood as *revealed* tradition, that is truths and principles of divine order revealed or unveiled to mankind.

“Tradition is essentially of "super-human" origin, which is quite exactly also its correct definition and nothing traditional cannot be qualified as such without the presence of this vital and axial* foundational element, which defines its own authentic character.”

“Nothing which is purely human can be considered traditional, that is why it is wrong - as René Guénon rightly says - to talk about a "philosophic tradition" or a "scientific tradition"... because only the heritery forms of an uninterrupted chain of transmission (silsilah) deserve the qualification "traditional" for they will guarantee the reality and permanence of the "vital element", ie. that of non-human origin, inside a particular tradition.” DRG

Or to put in another way: Tradition is the light with which the human kind has been endowed with from the beginning of times to the end of it; it is the light of meaning in an otherwise meaningsless void, it is the light of spiritual guidance in a materialistic and hedonistic era, it is the light of the Logos shining upon the contingent entities. This Light is from God, the light of the heavens and earth.

In the case of Islam, which is the most recent - and the last of traditions, the concept of tradition, the dîn, is seen as being twofold:

• in its general meaning the transmission of an element of the suprahuman level - the Qur'an,
• and in its specific sense the words and sayings reported from Prophet Muhammad  may Allah bless him and grant him peace, which have been recorded in the hadith collections together with the entire Islamic religion.

2.1 Modernism & postmodernism

In modernism it was believed that materiality or phenomena was everything there is and that it is superiour to anything else. This philosophy of science is called positivism - it is a rejection of metaphysics, as it holds that the goal of knowledge is simply to describe the phenomena that we experience, which we can observe and measure and nothing beyond that. 

In some quarters there was still an underlying, dormant longing for the construction or discovery of the Grand Design (4*), meaning a new unity of being, of what reality really is, but a unity which had to do without religion and metaphysics. ( 2.3ff  )

(4*) Probing the "Grand Design, in posing the greatest questions: How vast is the Universe, the entirety of existence? Was there a beginning? Will there be an end? What is the origin and fate of the Universe?" 
< From "Cosmology: A Cosmic Perspective" >

However, as Charles Upton has shown ( SAC-33 ) 
in postmodernism it is always held (as a conviction or belief ?!) that:
(1) there is no Grand Design,
(2) truth is plural and ultimately subjective,
(3) reality is only as it is configured,
(4) there is nothing out there but chaotic potential.
So much for the quest for truth! ( 2.2  )

Furthermore, with today's "celebration of diversity", normal logical thinking seems to have evaporated from many a contemporary mind, as modernism and postmodernism even can work together, or so it seems, in the mind of a single individual, confounding it and neutralizing any attempt toward a traditional or metaphysical view of reality! SAC 

____So much so that by now "modernism has become nothing more than a sub-set, one more disrelated item in the postmodern spectrum of "diversity" ." SAC-34/5

2.5.5 Man did not 'evolve'

As long as man has lived on this earth he has had a traditional outlook or perspective on life, which is proven by the many old cultural remnants, not the least his holy scriptures. It was then that he relied on the Higher Being, God, Allah and lived under His protection and guidance. Man has never only been an individual with a brain without heart, nor just a heap of molecules in a DNA-structure, meaning that the mind is luckily more than nerve-threads and electrical signals. Instead man has a potential for knowing God and his soul and for choosing what is better in any given situation, or creative of the most beautiful, - as God's viceregent.

The traditional outlook on life is opposed to the modern or postmodern way of seeing reality, in fact the two are irreconcilable. Man has always been man, he did not have to evolve from some lower being, from an ape or a fish ... The idea of bringing out the higher from the lesser is a modern myth, it is both illogical and unscientific! 

____Imagine a piece of computer evolving - by accident - from its integrated IC-circuits, from its bits and zeros into the practical machine which it is - without the mind to design it and programme it! How much less is this conceivable in the - much more complex - biological domain of life itself !

Or the words of Charles Upton:
"The projection of this false myth of progress on biology results in the ideology known as 'evolutionism', the doctrin that the less is the causal origin of the greater, that the higher and more complex life forms, including man, have developed incrementally from simpler forms. The Traditionalists, on the other hand, teach that the advent of new life forms, which the fossil record shows to be more discontinuous than continuous - thus calling Darwin's 'natural selection of random mutations' into serious question - actually represents the descent of matter-organizing spiritual archetypes from the higher planes of Being, in response to God's creative word. These 'Platonic Ideas' of species then draw themselves the matter they need in order to construct physical vehicles for their life in space and time." SAC-105

2.4.2 Principles Are Necessary to Transcend the Human Level

However, doctrines and principles are necessary to gain meaning from empirical sense-data and to gain meaning is proof of perfection and permanency, and giving up on the quest for meaning leads to ignorance and despair. As one of the ancient savants, Aristotle, declared:

"The things which are most knowable are first principles and causes; for it is through these and from these that other things come to be known, and not these through the particulars which fall under them." AM I.ii.6

Man has therefore to prepare himself to a way of life concerning thought and practice, which will enable him to transcend the materialistic, and only psychological levels of understanding.

2.4.3 The Validity of the Modern Sciences

Transcending the materialistic and psychologic levels of understanding is neither intended nor envisaged by modern science. Obviously can neither empiricism, nor validification through induction, nor "reliance upon the data of the senses as confirmed by reason, serve as principles in the metaphysical sense." TIM These scientific methods are valid on their own restricted levels leading to results and applications of the sciences which created them, but they are neither able to answer our existential questions nor improve our normal human condition. (normal: how man was meant to be, ...  )

____What is worse, modern science has with all its inventions brought about a serious disequilibrium in this world - despite their partial benefits - , precisely because of it being divorced from - and its inability of taking account of - the higher principles, even if this may not always have been the intention of the individual scientist.

4. True science is based on the Intellect

In modernism reason is conceived as a purely human activity, also cut off from the Transcendant and in postmodernism one is set to deconstruct reason by taking hold of and referring to the irrational levels of the human psyche, whereas in traditional sciences the human mind is understood as being a mirror of the Divine Mind. The picture produced on the mirror is the product of the Picture-maker reflecting Itself on it. 

Thus tradition has always held that the organ ''and container of knowledge is not the human mind but ultimately the Divine Intellect.'' Therefore ''true science is not based on purely human reason but on the Intellect which belongs to the supra-human level of reality, yet illuminates the human mind.'' TIM p.100. 

"When Descartes uttered, 'I think, therefore I am (cogito ergo sum), he placed his individual awareness of his own limited self as the criterion of existence, for certainly the 'I' in Descartes' assertion was not the Divine 'I' who, through Hallâj, exclaimed, 'I am the Truth' (ana'l Haqq): The Divine 'I' which alone, according to traditional sources has the right to say 'I'. Until Descartes, it was Pure Being, the Being of God, which determined human existence and the various levels of reality. But with Cartesian rationalism, individual human existence became the criterion of reality and also the truth." TIM p.100

   And what could be of more success to earthly man than to relate his intellect to the higher Intellect which is not of his own and which is unrestricted and independant of place and time. ( Quran 24-19 )

Read full: http://www.livingislam.org/mmt_e.html

References:

TIM: Traditional Islam In The Modern World; Seyyed Hossein Nasr;

SAC: The System Of Antichrist; Truth And Falsehood In Postmodernism & New Age; Charles Upton; Sophia Perennis, NY 2001

DRG: Dictionnaire de René Guénon, Jean-Marc Vivenza; Éditions Le Mercure Dauphinois, Grenoble 2005

"Not About Islam as Religion, About A Universe Recognizably Islamic"

Ali A. Allawi

The Crisis of Islamic Civilization

"This book is not about Islam as religion or as a code of outer conduct and transactions. This book is about Islamic civilization, a universe that is recognizably Islamic."

 One of The Globalist's Top Books of 2009.

Islam as a religion is central to the lives of over a billion people, but its outer expression as a distinctive civilization has been undergoing a monumental crisis. Buffeted by powerful adverse currents, Islamic civilization today is a shadow of its former self. The most disturbing and possibly fatal of these currents—the imperial expansion of the West into Muslim lands and the blast of modernity that accompanied it—are now compounded by a third giant wave, globalization.

These forces have increasingly tested Islam and Islamic civilization for validity, adaptability, and the ability to hold on to the loyalty of Muslims, says Ali A. Allawi in his provocative new book. While the faith has proved resilient in the face of these challenges, other aspects of Islamic civilization have atrophied or died, Allawi contends, and Islamic civilization is now undergoing its last crisis.

The book explores how Islamic civilization began to unravel under colonial rule, as its institutions, laws, and economies were often replaced by inadequate modern equivalents. Allawi also examines the backlash expressed through the increasing religiosity of Muslim societies and the spectacular rise of political Islam and its terrorist offshoots. Assessing the status of each of the building blocks of Islamic civilization, the author concludes that Islamic civilization cannot survive without the vital spirituality that underpinned it in the past. He identifies a key set of principles for moving forward, principles that will surprise some and anger others, yet clearly must be considered.

Ali A. Allawi has served as Minister of Defense and Minister of Finance in the Iraqi postwar governments. The author of the highly praised Occupation of Iraq, he is senior visiting fellow at Princeton University.

 http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300139310

Imam Ali (R.A.): Levels of True Religious Understanding in Islam

James Morris

The contents of [Imam] Ali’s lesson to[ his closest companion and disciple] Kumayl [ibn Ziyad al-Nakha’i] are all presented as a clarification of his opening statement that:

There are three sorts of people (with regard to Religion, al-Din).

• A divinely inspired Knower (‘alim rabbani);
• the person who is seeking (that true spiritual) Knowing (muta‘allim) along the path of salvation;
• and the riffraff and rabble, the followers of every screaming voice, those who bend with every wind, who have not sought to be illuminated by the Light of (divine) Knowing and who have not had recourse to a solid support.

In the remainder of his lesson, Ali goes on to explain some of the basic conditions for these three radically different levels of (and potentials for) true religious understanding. Each of his points here—as throughout the Nahj al-Balagha—is of course profoundly rooted in the central teachings of the Qur’an. However here we can only summarize his most essential observations in the simplest possible terms.

First, and most importantly, it is human Hearts (the Qur’anic qalb al-insan) that are the

locus of true spiritual ‘Knowing’ (‘ilm) and of our awareness of God and Truth: that is, it is not simply our mind or intellect or passion. Hence the decisive practical importance, throughout theNahj al-Balagha, of Ali’s constant stress on the purification of our hearts, through inner surrender to the divine Will (taslim), as the underlying spiritual purpose of the many divine commandments.

Divine, inspired ‘Knowing,’ however it is outwardly acquired, can only be 

perceived as such by the Heart that has been ‘polished,’ emptied of this world’s distractions and attachments, and thereby opened up to the full significance and reality of the divine Word—and to the further rights and obligations (another dimension of the Arabic al-Haqq) flowing from that opening.

Second, the practically indispensable key to this human potential for religious Knowing

is the real existence and efforts of a limited number of divinely guided individuals—again, not of particular books, rituals, doctrines or worldly institutions, none of which are even mentioned in this intimate, highly personal lesson. Ali refers here to those very special human doorways to true religious understanding by several profoundly significant Qur’anic expressions: the ‘divine Knowers’; the ‘Friends of God’ (awliya’ Allah); God’s ‘Proofs’ or ‘Clear Signs’ on Earth (hujja,bayyina); God’s ‘True Servants’ (‘ibad Allah); and finally as God’s true earthly ‘stand-ins’ or 'Stewards’ (khalifat Allah).

The Imam tells us several other very important things in his description of these true

‘Friends of God:’

• They are always present on earth, ‘whether openly or in secret.’

• They are directly inspired by the divine ‘Spirit of Certainty’ (ruh alyaqin

Therefore they pre-eminently possess true spiritual Insight (haqiqat albasara) into the deeper spiritual realities underlying earthly events and experiences, into the actual meanings of the infinite divine ‘Signs’ constituting our existence

• Their spiritual task and mission on earth is to pass on this divine

Knowing to those properly qualified souls who are truly ready for and

receptive to their divinely inspired teachings.

Third, Ali describes the divine ‘Knowing’ that can be conveyed uniquely by these

specially missioned individuals as having the following qualities:

• It is the ‘Din (true Religion/true Justice) by which God is truly

worshipped and served.’

• It is the indispensable key to realising what the Qur’an constantly

describes as our ultimate human purpose: i.e., to transforming the mortal

biped or ‘human-animal’ (bashar) into the theomorphic, truly human

being (insan), who alone can freely follow and truly obey God (the inner

state of ita‘a), eventually becoming a pure manifestation of the divine

Will.

• Their divinely inspired Knowing is the true ‘Judge’ or Criterion for

rightly perceiving and employing all the illusory possessions (mal) of this world .

Fourth, the ‘true Seekers’ (muta‘allimun) of that divine Knowing have at least the

following basic pre-requisites, each of which distinguishes them from the large majority of ordinary souls (al-nas). One might therefore say that each of these following five points mentioned by Ali here is in itself an essential pre-condition for acquiring true religious understanding:

Those true religious Seekers have a rare natural spiritual capacity to

recognize, absorb, and actualize the inspired teachings of the Friends of

God.

• They know that they need the indispensable guidance of God’s Friends

(the awliya’), and therefore actively seek it out. That is to say, they

actually realize that they are spiritually ‘ignorant’ and needy.

• They are willing and able to submit to the guidance of those divine

Knowers and Bearers of Truth, especially with regard to acknowledging

the true, ultimate aims of this inspired spiritual Knowing. In other

words, they have the indispensable humility to recognize their inner

ignorance and to overcome the central spiritual obstacle of pride.

• They have the practical insight and active spiritual perspicacity (basara)

to ‘see though’ the ongoing divine ‘private lessons’, the most essential

divine ‘Signs’ (ayat) of each soul’s life. (This particular point is one that

Ali especially stresses throughout all the sermons and teachings of the

Nahj al-Balagha.)   

• They are not secretly governed by their desires for power and

domination, qualities which Ali stresses (along with pride) as the

particular psychic passions most likely to trip up the otherwise apt

potential spiritual seekers of this group.

Finally, the rest of humanity are clearly—indeed even vehemently—said to lack, for the

time being, the above-mentioned prerequisites for realized spiritual learning and illumination, because of the current domination of their hearts by their psychic passions of the nafs: for power, pleasure, possessions, and the attractions ‘this lower world’ (al-dunya) in general. In this particular context, Ali does not openly clarify whether or not ‘purification’ of our hearts from such worldly passions is in itself the only obstacle to deeper spiritual and religious realization, or whether some individuals are simply born with dramatically greater, relatively unique spiritual capacities and potential. However, his recurrent and insistent practical stress on the ethically purifying dimensions of Islamic ritual and devotional practice throughout much of the rest of the Nahj al-Balagha is a strong indication that revealed prescriptions for religious teaching and practice can and should be understood as well as an indispensable preparatory discipline that can be used to move at least some individuals toward the receptive inner state of these true ‘seekers.’

http://baytunur.blogspot.com/2010/03/imam-ali-as-levels-of-true-religious.html

Ali imaam-e-manasto manam Ghulaam-e-Ali

hazaar jaan-e-giraamii fidaa-e-naam-e-Ali

Ali is the master of all, I am the slave of Ali

thousands life are to be sacrificed for Ali.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbKvwLTUzcU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83Nu7NubonI&feature=related

Read full paper: 

http://www.religioperennis.org/documents/morris/ImamAli.pdf

Prof. James W. Morris teaches at the Theology Department at Boston College, MA, USA. He took his doctorate from Harvard University in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, 1980.

Prior to joining Boston College, Professor Morris held the Sharjah Chair of Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, and he has taught previously atPrinceton University, Oberlin College, Temple University, and theInstitute of Ismaili Studies in Paris and London.