Answer to a University Student Part1

The following is the simplified translation of a letter written as an answer to a university student by Sayyid ’Abdulhakîm Efendi while he was the senior professor of tasawwuf at the Madrasa-tul-mutassisîn (the Faculty of Theology), which was located in the garden of the Sultân Selîm Mosque in Istanbul:

Go out of the area of the omnipotence of Allahu ta’âlâ with all your strength, if you can! But you cannot. Outside of this area is nonexistence. And the realm of nonexistence is also under His omnipotence!

On an occasion, somebody asked [the great Walî] Ibrâhim ibn Ad’ham (quddisa sirruh) for advice. He said: “If you accept six things, nothing you do will harm you. These six things are as follows:

“1. When you mean to commit a sin, do not eat the food He gives! Does it befit you to eat His food and to disobey Him?
“2. When you want to rebel against Him, go out of His Domain! Does it befit you to be in His Domain and to be in rebellion against Him?
“3. When you want to disobey Him, do not sin where He sees you! Sin where He does not see you! It simply is unbecoming to be in His Domain, to eat His food and then to sin where He sees you!
“4. When the Angel of Death comes to take away your soul, ask him to wait till you repent! You cannot turn that angel back! Repent before he comes, while you are able, and you have the chance at this very hour, for the Angel of Death comes unexpectantly!
“5. When the two angels Munkar and Nakîr come to question you in the grave, turn them back! Do not let them test you!”
“It is impossible,” said the person who asked for his Advice. Shaikh Ibrâhîm said, “Then prepare your answers now!
“6. On the Day of Resurrection, when Allahu ta’âlâ orders: ‘Sinners, go to Hell!’ say that you will not!”

The person said, “Nobody will listen to me,” and then repented, and he did not break his repentance till death. There is Divine Effect in the words of Awliyâ’.

Ibrâhîm ibn Ad’ham (quddisa sirruh) was asked, “Allahu ta’âlâ declares, ‘O My human creatures! Ask Me! I will accept, I will give’ However, we ask but He does not give?” Hadrat Ibrâhîm said:

“You entreat Allahu ta’âlâ, but you do not obey Him. You know His Prophet (sall-Allahu ta’âlâ ’alaihi wa salam), but you do not follow him. You read the Qur’ân al-karîm, but you do not follow the way it shows. You utilize Allahu ta’âlâ’s blessings, but you do not thank Him. You know that Paradise is for those who worship, but you do not make preparations for it. You know that He has created Hell for the disobedient, but you do not fear it. You see what happened to your fathers and grandfathers, but you do not take warning. You do not see your own defects, and you search for defects in others. Such people must be thankful because it does not rain stones on them, because they do not sink into the earth, and because it does not rain fire from the sky! What else could they want? Would not this suffice as a recompense for their prayers?”

[In the sixtieth âyat of the Sûrat-ul-Mu’min, Allahu ta’âlâ declares, “Pray to Me. I will accept.” There are 5 conditions for a du’a [prayer, supplication] to be accepted: you must be a Muslim; your creed must be in accordance with the creed of Ahl as-Sunnah; you must abstain from committing harâm, especially from eating or drinking harâm things; you must perform the fards, especially the five daily namâzes, Ramadân fasts, and zakât; you must learn the means of the thing for which you implore Allahu ta’âlâ and look for that means. Allahu ta’âlâ creates everything through some means. When one begs Him for something, He sends its means and gives effectivity to that means. Humans use that means and thus obtain what they desire. However, when the awliyâ’ supplicate or when one supplicates Allah through the Awliyâ by making them intercessors, He suspends His law of causation temporarily for the sake of His Awliyâ and gives what is wanted directly as karâmat without any means.]

As you have not come out of nonexistence to this world of existence by yourself, so you cannot go there by yourself. The eyes with which you see, the ears with which you hear, the organs with which you perceive, the intellect with which you think, the hands and feet which you use, all the roads you will pass, all the places you will be, in short, all the members and systems connected with your body and soul, all of them, are Allahu ta’âlâ’s possessions and creatures. You cannot misappropriate anything from Him! He is Hayy and Qayyûm, that is, He sees, knows and hears, and every moment He keeps in existence everything that exists. Even for a moment, He is never unaware of the state of all things, nor does He ever fail to control all of them. He does not let anybody steal His property. He is never incapable of punishing those who disobey His commands. It would not make any difference if, for instance, He had not created any human being on this globe, as He did not on the Moon, on Mars or on other planets; His greatness would not have diminished for this reason.

A hadîth-i qudsî says,
(If [all of] your ancestors and descendants, the young and the old, the alive and the dead, human beings and genies, were like My most devoted, Most obedient human creature, My Greatness would not be increased. Conversely, if you all were like My enemy, who opposes Me and despises My Prophets, My Greatness would not ever decrease. Allahu ta’âlâ is free from needing you; He needs none of you. As for you, in order that you might exist and keep on existing and in everything you do, you always need Him.) [Muslim]

He sends light and heat by means of the sun. He makes the moon reflect waves of light. Out of black soil, He creates many vivid-colored, sweet-scented flowers and beautiful appearance. From the breeze, He pours out the breath which gives relief to hearts. From the stars that are at a distance of many years’ way, He makes it rain haloes on the earth, out of which you came about and under which you will be buried in the end. Through many vibrations, He creates effectivity in particles. [On the one hand, by turning dirt, which you dislike and are disgusted with, into soil by means of His smallest, most trifling creatures (germs), He turns this soil, which you tread on, into a white-of-egg-like substance, protein, the constructive matter of your body, through the factory of plants. On the other hand, by combining the water in the earth with the suffocating gases in the air, again in the factory of plants and by storing in them the energy which He sends from the sky, He creates starchy and sugary substances and oils, the source of energy, that will operate the machine of your body.] Thus, in plants, which He causes to grow in fields, deserts, mountains, in rills, and in animals, that He enables to live on the earth and under the seas, He prepares food which will go into your stomach and nourish you. By establishing chemistry laboratories in your lungs, He isolates poison from your blood and puts the useful matter of oxygen in its place.

By establishing physics laboratories in your brain, the information coming from your organs of perception, through your nerves, are taken there and, as He has placed a magnetic power into the stone of iron, so with the effect of intelligence, which He has placed into your brain and other immaterial powers, which He has placed into your heart, various plans, commands and actions are prepared simultaneously through His creation.

By making your heart work through very complex mechanisms, which you consider very extraordinary, He makes rivers of blood flow in your blood vessels. He weaves many a dumbfounding net of roads through your nerves. He conceals stocks in your muscles. By means of many other phenomena, He equips and completes your body. He establishes and fits all of these in an order and harmony to which you give such names as the laws of physics, chemical reactions or biological events. He places centers of power within you. He projects the necessary precautions into your soul and conscience. He also gifts a treasure called the intellect, a gauge named reason, a means named thought, and a key which you call will. In order that you might use each of these correctly, He gives you sweet enticements and bitter warnings, hints, inclinations and goals. And as a greater blessing, He clearly sends instructions through faithful and dependable prophets.

In conclusion, operating the machine of your body and giving you the necessary instructions, He hands it over to you so that you may use and utilize it conveniently. He does all these things not because He needs you, your will or help but to make you happy by giving you a distinguished position and authority among His creatures. If, instead of leaving it to your hands, your feet and all of your limbs, which you can use according to your wish, He used them without you knowing it, as is the case with the beating of your heart, the expansion of your lungs and the circulation of your blood, if He controlled you by force, with reflex actions, with paralyzed hands or feet, if each of your actions was a vibration and every movement was a twitch, could you claim to possess yourself and the things He has lent you? If He made you move under the influence of external powers, like the lifeless, or irrational and senseless exterior and interior powers, like pack animals, and if He put into your mouth a morsel of the blessings—which you take in large amounts to your houses now—could you take and eat that morsel?

Whatever you follow, worship, love or regard as the absolute ruler besides Allahu ta’âlâ, be it known that it will burn together with you.

(continued the rest of this topic as Part2 next days)