The Hikam of Ibn ‘Ata’illah / Chapter 10

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

89. Far be it from our Lord to repay with credit the servant who deals with Him in cash.

90. Suffice it as a repayment to you for obedience that He has judged you worthy of obedience.

91. It suffices as a reward for the doers of good that He has inspired obedience to Him in their hearts and brought upon them the existence of intimacy between Him and them [mu’anasa].

92. Whoever worships Him for something he hopes for from Him, or in order to stave off the arrival of chastisement [al-‘uquba], has not concerned himself with the real nature of His Attributes [bi-haqqi awsafihi].

93. When He gives, He shows you His kindness [birr]; when He deprives, He shows you His power [qahr]. And in all that, He is making Himself known to you and coming to you with His gentleness.

94. Deprivation [al-man‘] hurts you only because of the lack of your understanding of Allah in it.

95. Sometimes He opens the door of obedience for you but not the door of acceptance; or sometimes He condemns you to wrong-action, and it turns out to be a cause of arriving at Him.

96. A disobedience that bequeathes humiliation and extreme need is better than an obedience that bequeathes self-infatuation and pride.

97. There are two blessings [ni‘matan] from which no being can be separated and that are inevitable for every creature: the blessing of existence [al-ijad], and the blessing of sustenance [imdad].

98. He bestowed His blessings upon you, first, through giving you being [bi’l-ijad], and, second, through uninterrupted sustenance [imdad].

99. Your indigence [faqa] belongs to you essentially, for accidents do not abolish essential indigence: the trials that arrive in this world are but reminders to you of what you ignore of indigence.

100. The best of your moments is the one wherein you witness the existence of your indigence and, through it, arrive at the existence of your lowliness [dhilla].

101. When He alienates you from His creatures, then know that He wants to open for you the door of intimacy with Him.

102. When he loosens your tongue with a request, then know that He wants to give you something.

103. The imperative need [al-idtirar] of the Gnostic never vanishes, nor is his repose [qarar] in anyone but Allah.

104. He illumined exterior phenomena [az-zawahir] with the lights of His created things [athar]; and He illumined the secrets [as-sara’ir] with the uncreated lights of His attributes [bi-anwar awsafihi]. For that reason, the lights of exterior phenomena set, whereas the lights of hearts [al-qulub] and of the secrets [as-sara’ir] do not set. That is why it is said, “Verily, the sun of the day sets at night, but the Sun of hearts [shams al-qulub] never sets!”

The Hikam of Ibn ‘Ata’illah / Chapter 9

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

75. The best that you can seek from Him is that which He seeks from you.

76. One of the signs of delusion is sadness over the loss of obedience coupled with the absence of resolve to bring it back to life.

77. The Gnostic [al-‘arif] is not one who, when he makes a symbolic allusion, finds Allah nearer to himself than his allusion [ishara]. Rather, the Gnostic is he who has no symbolic allusion due to his self-extinction in His existence [li-fana’ihi fi wujudhihi] and self-absorption in contemplating Him.

78. Hope [ar-raja] goes hand in hand with deeds, otherwise it is a wish [umniyya].

79. That which the Gnostics seek from Allah is sincerity in servanthood [al-‘ubudiyya] and performance of the claims of Lordship [ar-rububiyya].

80. He expanded you so as not to keep you in contraction [al-qabd], and contracted you so as not to keep you in expansion [al-bast], and He took you out of both so that you not belong to anything apart from Him.

81. It is more dreadful for Gnostics to be expanded than to be contracted, for only a few can stay within the limits of proper conduct [hudud al-adab] in expansion [fi’l-bast].

82. Through the existence of joy the soul gets its share in expansion, but there is no share for the soul in contraction.

83. Sometimes He gives while depriving you, and sometimes He deprives you in giving.

84. When He opens up your understanding of deprivation [al-man‘], the deprivation becomes the same as the gift [al-ata’].

85. Outwardly, creatures [al-akwan] are an illusion [ghirra], but, inwardly, they are an admonition [‘ibra]. Thus, the self looks at the illusory exterior [zahiri ghirratiha] while the heart looks at the admonitory interior [batini ‘ibratiha].

86. If you want a glory [‘izz] that does not vanish, then do not glory in a glory that vanishes.

87. The real journey [at-tayy al-haqiqi] is when the world’s dimension [masafat ad-dunya] is rolled away from you so that you see the Hereafter closer to you than yourself.

88. A gift from man is deprivation [al-hirman], and deprivation [al-man‘] from Allah is beneficence [al-ihsan].

The Hikam of Ibn ‘Ata’illah / Chapter 8

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

69. It is rare that divine inspirations [al-waridat al-ilahiyya] come except suddenly, and this, in order that they are protected from servant’s claiming them by virtue of the existence of receptivity [bi-wujud al-isti‘dad] on their part.

70. Infer the existence of ignorance in anyone whom you see answering all that he is asked or giving expression to all that he witnesses or mentioning all that he knows.

71. He made the Hereafter [ad-dar al-akhira] an abode to reward his believing servants only because this world cannot contain what He wishes to bestow upon them and because He deemed their worth too high to reward them in a world without permanence.

72. Whoever finds the fruit of his deeds [thamarat ‘amalihi] coming quickly [‘ajil] has proof of the existence of acceptance [al-qabul].

73. If you want to know your standing with Him, look at where He has made you abide now.

74. When He gives you obedience [at-ta‘a], making you unaware of it because of Him, then know that He has showered you liberally with His graces both inwardly and outwardly.

The Hikam of Ibn ‘Ata’illah / Chapter 7

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

60. Were it not for the seeds of ambitious desire [tama‘], the branches of disgrace [aghsan dhull] would not be lofty.

61. Nothings leads you like suspicion [al-wahm].

62. In your despairing, you are a free man [hurr]; but in your coveting, you are a slave [‘abd].

63. Whoever does not draw near to Allah as a result of the caresses of love [mulatafat al-ihsan] is shackled to Him with the chains of misfortune [salasil al-imtihan].

64. Whoever is not thankful for graces [an-ni‘am] runs the risk of losing them, and whoever is thankful fetters them with their own cords.

65. Be fearful lest the existence of His generosity towards you and the permanence of your bad behavior towards Him not lead you step by step to ruin. “We shall lead them to ruin step by step from whence they know not.”

66. It is ignorance on the part of the novice [murid] to act improperly, and then, his punishment being delayed, to say, “If this had been improper conduct, He would have cut off help [imdad] and imposed exile [bi‘ad].” Help [al-madad] could be cut off from him without his being aware of it, if only by blocking its increase [al-mazid]. And it could be that you are made to abide at a distance [al-bu‘d] without your knowing it, if only by His leaving you to do as you like.

67. If you see a servant whom Allah has made to abide in the recitation of litanies [al-awrad] and prolonged His help therein, do not disdain what his Lord has given him on the score that you do not detect the signs of Gnostics [siyamu’l-‘arifin] on him nor the splendor of Allah’s lovers [bahjat al-muhibbin]. For had there not been an inspiration [warid], there would have been no litany [wird].

68. Allah makes some people abide in the service of Him [li-khidmatihi], and He singles out others to love Him [bi-mahabbatihi]. “All do we aid—these as well as those—out of the bounty of thy Lord, and the bounty of thy Lord is not limited.”

The Hikam of Ibn ‘Ata’illah / Chapter 6

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

48. A sign of the heart’s death is the absence of sadness over the acts of obedience that you have neglected and the abandonment of regret over the mistakes that you have made.

49. Let no wrong-action [dhanb] reach such proportions in your eyes that it cuts you off from having a good opinion of Allah, for, indeed, whoever knows his Lord considers his wrong-action as paltry next to His generosity.

50. There is no minor sin [saghira] when His justice confronts you; and there is no major sin [kabira] when His grace confronts you.

51. No deed is more fruitful for the heart than the one you are not aware of and which is deemed paltry by you.

52. He only made an inspiration [warid] come upon you so that you would go [warid] to Him.

53. He made an inspiration come upon you so as to get you out of the grip of otherness [min yadi’l-aghyar] and free you from bondage to created things [min riqqi’l-athar].

54. He made an inspiration come upon you so as to take you out of the prison of your existence to the unlimited space of your contemplation [ila fad’i shuhudika].

55. Lights [al-anwar] are the riding-mounts [mataya] of hearts and of their secrets [al-asrar].

56. Light is the army of the heart, just as darkness is the army of the self. So when Allah wishes to come to the help of His servant, He furnishes him with armies of Lights [junud al-anwar] and cuts off from him the reinforcements of darkness and otherness [mada az-zulm wa’l-aghyar].

57. Insight [al-kashf] belongs to the Light [an-nur], discernment [al-hukm] to inner sight [al-basira], and both progression [al-iqbal] and retrogression [al-idbar] belong to the heart [al-qalb].

58. Let not obedience make you joyous because it comes from you, but, rather, be joyous over it because it comes from Allah to you. “Say: In the grace of Allah and His mercy, in that they should rejoice. It is better than that which they hoard.”

59. He prevents those who are voyaging to Him from witnessing their deeds and those who are united with Him from contemplating their states. He does that for the voyagers because they have not realized sincerity [as-sidq] towards Allah in those works; and He does that for those united with Him because he makes them absent from contemplating those states by contemplating Him [bi-shuhudihi].