Author: aal-e-qutub

The Divine Visions.

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■ The Divine Visions.

Shaykh ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Jīlī, may Almighty
Allāh sanctify his secret says in Al-Manāẓir al-Ilāhiyyah (The Divine Visions)

▪︎ The First Vision
(Worship Allāh as though you see Him)

Divine, merciful breezes descend upon the servant, enabling him to envision the Presence of the Truth Allāh in His majesty and glory. Thus, all the servant’s words, actions, and states become acts of worship, as they are drawn from the Divine Presence.

▪︎  The Second Vision
(Watchfulness, Murāqabah)

It is the servant’s witnessing, with his heart,
of the Presence of the Exalted Truth, whereby the insignificance weakness, smallness, and humility of the self become manifest beneath the manifestation of Divine Greatness.

▪︎ The Third Vision
(Absolute Theophany, Tajallī)

When the servant becomes upright in the station of faith, a luminous, merciful radiance emanates from his heart, these are the lights of faith. From this light, a divine meaning is cast into his heart, causing him to withdraw from sensory perception into that light. Allāh then opens for the servant gates of knowledge and spiritual influxes, granting him insights into the unity of the outward within manifestations.

▪︎ The Fourth Vision
(Witnessing, Mushāhadah)

In this vision, the servant beholds Allāh in all His creation. He witnesses Reality through the Truth, without confusion, imagination, illusion, or falsehood. This witnessing occurs without incarnation (ḥulūl), mixture, embodiment, or anthropomorphism. Do you not see how Allāh manifested to our master Moses in the created fire?

▪︎ The Fifth Vision
(Being, Wujūd)

The Truth manifests through the very essences of appearances, becoming both the outward and the locus of manifestation. This is the
first unveiling of the station of Divine Unity (al-Wāḥidiyyah). Here, the servant has no actions.

▪︎ Imām Al-Junāyd said:

“When the originated is compared to the Eternal, it leaves no trace.”

When Allāh manifests to the servant in this station, diverse sciences of manifestation
are opened to him, unveiling the realities, knowledge, and secrets of the entire cosmos.

▪︎ The Sixth Vision
(Manifestation of Actions)

In this station, the servant’s own actions, power, ability, and will are stripped away nothing remains of them. Allāh unveils the inner sight of the servant, who then sees all actions as attributed to Him.

The servant perceives that the true Doer
within him is Allāh. He may even be shown the Preserved Tablet, witnessing what Allāh wills before it occurs, gaining insight into destiny (qadar).

Yet, the servant may become tested by witnessing decree and become veiled from
the Decreer.

▪︎  The Seventh Vision
(Manifestation of Attributes)

Here, the attributes of the Truth are witnessed. Whenever one of His attributes appears to you, one of your own attributes fades away until all your attributes vanish.

When your qualities perish, you witness His attributes alone, becoming without attributes: no life, knowledge, power, will, hearing, sight,
or speech remains attributed to the servant.

▪︎ The Eighth Vision
(Leave Yourself and Come)

Leaving the self means denying your ego-identity and affirming the Divine Identity. You are no longer “you”; rather, you are “He” indeed, you are nothing but “He,” for He alone is.

In this station, the Divine Names are ascribed to you, descending upon you one by one, as do the merciful attributes each according to your capacity to receive.

You are granted inner (ladunnī) knowledge
of the spiritual presence, its relations, manifestations, hiddenness, firstness, and lastness.

Yet, one may become veiled by the lights of
the Names and Attributes themselves.

▪︎ The Ninth Vision
(Dialogues of the Names and Attributes)

In this vision, every Divine Name and Attribute addresses you according to its realities of beauty, majesty, and perfection.

You hear them address one another. Divine meanings descend upon you, and secrets are unveiled from the sciences of Oneness (Aḥadiyyah), Unity (Wāḥidiyyah), Divinity,
and Mercifulness.

Every Name you encounter speaks to you of
the divine secrets it contains. Yet, one may
be veiled by these dialogues from giving each Name and Attribute its proper due.

▪︎ The Tenth Vision
(Essential Annihilation, Fanā’ Dhātī)

In this station, your very essence dissolves. You vanish from your attributes and from all that is ascribed to you, qualities, actions, traces. Your existence fades; your composition is undone.

You perceive no body, soul, heart, secret, form, or meaning. You are annihilated under His manifestation from every direction no knowledge, identity, action, or reality remains for you.

▪︎ The Eleventh Vision
(Annihilation of Annihilation)

Here, the rulings of effacement, obliteration, erasure, and non-existence are fully realized. You first vanish from yourself and all that is attributed to you, then you vanish from even that annihilation.

A necessary pull draws you to the Essence
of the Necessary Being. Your witnessing becomes in Allāh, as He said:

“Has there not come upon man a time when
he was nothing worth mentioning?”
(Qur’ān 76:1)

▪︎ The Twelfth Vision
(Subsistence – Baqā’)

In this station, Allāh causes you to remain by His essential Light.

Your existence is returned to you, and you witness your hearing, sight, knowledge, power, strength, life, speech, actions, and states as belonging to you, yet you know that Allāh’s Life, Knowledge, Hearing, Sight, Will, Power, and Speech are unlike yours. You thus witness

Truth as truth and follow it, and falsehood as falsehood and avoid it. You recognize your created nature and your self, and you refrain from them. This is the beginning of the people of True Certainty (Ḥaqq al-Yaqīn).

Sufism: A Reality With No Name.

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■ Sufism: A Reality With No Name.

At the time of the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ,
what we now call Tasawwuf had no formal title, no structured terminology, and no separate identity as a “science.”

Yet its essence permeated everything. It was not an added layer to Islām it was the inner life of Islām itself.

“It was a reality without a name.”

This reality was embodied perfectly in the
life of the Prophet ﷺ the one whom Allāh describes in the Qur’an as:

“Indeed, in the Messenger of Allāh
you have an excellent model…” (33:21)

He ﷺ was not only the conveyor of revelation, but the living manifestation of its inward meanings.

His nights in prayer, his tears in supplication, his constant remembrance, and his humility 
all of this formed the foundation of what would later be called Sufism.

▪︎ The Companions: The First People of the Path

The Companions, may Allāh be pleased with them did not study spirituality as a subject  they lived it.

Their purification came through direct companionship with the Prophet ﷺ.

They learned sincerity, reliance on Allāh, love, and the discipline of the ego not from books, but from witnessing the one whose character was the Qur’ān.

Among them were those who embodied deep spiritual realization, such as Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq, may Allāh be pleased with him, in his complete truthfulness and surrender.

Sayyidunā ‘Ali ibn Abi Tālib, may Allāh be pleased with him, whose words later became oceans of spiritual wisdom for seekers of the path.

There were also the People of the Bench,
a group of devoted companions who lived in the mosque of the Prophet ﷺ, detached from worldly concerns, immersed in remembrance, poverty, and presence with Allāh.

They represent one of the earliest visible expressions of ascetic spirituality within Islam.

▪︎ Remembrance: The Lifeblood of the Heart

Gatherings of remembrance were a natural expression of the Qurʾānic command to remember Allāh abundantly.

The companions would sit together, invoking Allāh, reflecting on His signs, and softening their hearts.

This is why the verse you cited from Al-Kahf (18:28) is central to the Sufi understanding:

“Restrain yourself with those who call upon their Lord morning and evening, seeking His Face…”

▪︎ This verse highlights three essential foundations of the path:

▪︎ Companionship with people of remembrance

▪︎ Sincerity in seeking only Allāh

▪︎ Detachment from worldly distractions

▪︎ From Reality to Name

As time passed and hearts became more occupied with worldly life, scholars began to formalize this inner dimension to preserve it.

Thus the term Tasawwuf emerged, not to introduce something new, but to protect something ancient.

▪︎ Great masters like Shaykh Al-Junāyd of Baghdad, may Allāh sanctify his secret,
defined it as:

“That Allāh causes you to die to yourself and live in Him.”

Imām Abu Hāmid al-Ghazāli, may Allāh sanctify his secret, later revived its sciences, showing that without purification of the heart, outward knowledge remains incomplete.

From Egypt, many knowers of Allāh carried
this same reality and expressed it in words that reflect the depth of this path:

• Shaykh Aḥmad al-Badawī, may Allāh sanctify his secret, said:

“Your distance from Allāh is only the distance of your heart from remembrance. So return, and you will find Him near.”

• Shaykh Ibrāhīm al-Desoukī, may Allāh sanctify his secret, said:

“The one who knows Allāh is never alone,
and the one who is distracted from Him is never at rest.”

• Shaykh Abū al-Ḥasan al-Shādhili, may Allāh sanctify his secret, said:

“Do not move your feet except where you hope for reward, and do not sit except where you are safe from disobedience.”

• Shaykh Ahmad al-Dardir, may Allāh sanctify his secret, said:

“The path is not in the quantity of actions, but in the truthfulness within them. A small deed with presence outweighs mountains without it.”

These are not new teachings,  they are echoes of the same light that was present in the time of the Prophet ﷺ, preserved in the hearts of those who followed his way with sincerity.

▪︎ The Essence Remains

Sufism is not in the name, nor in outward appearance, nor in claims. It is:

A heart emptied of all but Allāh

A soul illuminated by remembrance

An inner state of constant awareness of Him

It is Islam lived with depth.
It is spiritual excellence to worship Allāh as though you see Him.

And so, even today, the reality remains what it always was:

A path of presence.
A journey of return.
A secret between the servant and his Lord.

“It was a reality without a name and it remains a reality beyond names.”

■ Teachings Of The Heart.