A Muslim Convert Once Before

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh ‘Abd al-Karim ibn Ibrahim al-Jili ( q.s. ) said, “Sufism in Islam has nothing to do with the spiritual exercises of Hinduism, nor with arts of magic and tricks of deceivers, nor with discipline invented and developed by heretical innovators.  The Sufism of Islam is the cultivation of the characteristics of the al-Musthafa ( s.a.w. ), and the illumination obtained from the lights of his noble breast and his gentle heart bestowed upon him by Allah ( s.w.t. ) through the expansion of his breast.  All of his followers and his community are among those specially Favoured with that expansion and illumination.  Outsiders have no justification for meddling in the significance of Sufism in Islam, for the religion Belongs to Allah ( s.w.t. ).  The truth is with Him and He is the Fairest of judges.”

بِ بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ This is taken from Of Books & Men .  Shaykh ‘Abd al-Karim ibn Ibrahim al-Jili ( q.s. ) wrote, in Maratib al-Wujud wa Haqiqatu kulli Mawjud , “I say unto you the levels of certitude alluded to by the terms ‘ilm al-yaqin , ‘ayn al-yaqin , and haqq al-yaqin , which we have said are the ultimate benefit to be obtained from reading books, are almost impossible to attain - not the slightest amount of them - by means of even a lifetime of pious works. I have seen young men of my brethren on the Path, by means of reading such books for even a few days, reach that which men devoted to pious works could not reach in forty or fifty years, even though they themselves were the cause for these young men to come to the Path; for when they limited themselves only to their way of action, whilst these young men read books of metaphysics and spiritual realities and understood them, they fell short of their full potential, and these young men became the...