The Hikam of Ibn ‘Ata’illah / Chapter 2

And he said (may Allah be pleased with him!):

17. The one who wants there to appear in the moment other than what Allah has willed in it has not abandoned ignorance at all.

18. Your postponement of deeds till the time when you are free is one of the frivolities of the self [ru‘unat an-nafs].

19. Do not request Him to get you out of a state to make use of you in a different one, for, were He to desire so, He could make use of you as you are, without taking you out!

20. Hardly does the intention of the initiate [himmat salik] want to stop at what has been revealed to him, than the voices of Reality [hawatif al-Haqiqa] call out to him: “That which you are looking for is still ahead of you!” And hardly do the exterior aspects of created beings display their charms, than their inner realities call out to him: “We are only a trial, so disbelieve not!”

21. Your requesting Him is suspecting Him. Your seeking Him is due to your absence from Him. Your seeking someone else is because of you immodesty towards Him. Your requesting someone else is on account of your distance [bu‘d] from Him.

22. Not a breath [nafas] do you expire but a decree of Destiny has made it go forth.

23. Do not look forward to being free of otherness [al-aghyar], for that is indeed what cuts you off from vigilant attention [al-muraqaba] to him in that very state He has assigned to you.

24. So long as you are in this world, be not surprised at the existence of sorrow. For, truly, it manifests nothing but what is in keeping with its character or its inevitable nature.

25. A goal which you seek by your Lord is not held back and a goal which you seek by yourself is not easy.

26. Amongst the signs of success at the end is the turning to Allah at the beginning.

27. Whoever has a noble beginning has a noble end.

28. Whatever is deposited in the invisible world of the secrets [ghayb as-sara’ir] is manifested in the visible world of phenomena [shahadat az-zawahir].

29. What a difference between one who proceeds from Allah in his argumentation and one who proceeds inferentially to Him! He who has Him as his starting-point knows the Real [al-Haqq] as It is, and proves any matter by reference to the being of its Origin. But inferential argumentation comes from the absence of union with Him. Otherwise, when was it that He became absent that one has to proceed inferentially to Him? Or when was it that He became distant that created things [al-athar] themselves will unite us to Him?

30. Those who are united with Him: “Let him who has abundance spend out of his abundance.” Those who are voyaging towards Him: “And whoever has his means of subsistence straightened to him . . . “

31. Those who are voyaging to Him are guided by the lights of their orientation [tawajjuh], whereas those who are united to Him have the lights of face-to-face confrontation [muwajaha]. The former belong to their lights, whereas the lights belong to the latter, for they belong to Allah and not to anything apart from Him. “Say: Allah! And then leave them plunging in their games.”