Movement in the Naqshbandi Thariqa’

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

On the Path, Imam Ahmad al-Faruqi ibn ‘Abd al-Ahad as-Sirhindi (q.s.) said, “In the journey leading to the unveiling of the Divine Realities, the seeker moves through various stages of knowledge of and proximity to His Lord.  Moving to Allah is a vertical movement from the lower stations to the higher stations; until the movement surpasses time and space and all the states dissolve into what is called ‘ilm al-wajib of Allah.  This is also called fana’.  Moving in Allah is the stage in which the seeker moves from the station of Names and Attributes to a state which neither word nor sign can describe.  This is the state of existence in Allah called baqa’.  Moving from Allah is the stage in which the seeker returns from the Divine realm to the world of cause and effect, descending from the highest station of knowledge to the lowest.  Here, he forgets Allah by Allah, and he knows Allah with Allah, and he returns from Allah to Allah.  This is called the state of the farthest and the nearest.  Moving in things is a movement within Creation.  This involves knowing intimately all elements and states in this world after having vanished in fana’.  Here, the seeker can achieve the state of guidance, which is the state of the prophets and the people following the footsteps of the Prophet (s.a.w.).  It brings the Divine Knowledge into the world of Creation in order to establish guidance. 

The entire process is like threading a needle.  The thread seeks the eye of the needle, passes through and then proceeds down to where it began.  There the two ends meet, form a knot and secure the entire thread.  They form a whole, thread, eye and needle, and any material they catch is sewn into the fabric of the unity.  It must be known to everyone that the Naqshbandi shuyukh chose to guide their muridun first through the movement from Allah, travelling from the higher states to the lower.  For this reason, they maintain the common veils over the spiritual vision of the murid, removing the veil of ordinary consciousness only at the final step.  All other thuruq begin with the movement to Allah, moving from the lowest states to the highest, and removing the common veils first.”


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