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The_Savior_from_Spiritual_Error_and_50_Principles, page : 101
character the purest character; indeed, were the intellect of the intellectuals
and the learning of the learned and the scholarship of the scholars, who are
versed in the profundities of revealed truth, brought together in the attempt to
improve the life and character of the mystics, they would find no way of doing
so; for to the mystics all movement and all rest, whether external or internal,
brings illumination from the light of the lamp of prophetic revelation; and
behind the light of prophetic revelation there is no other light on the face of the
earth from which illumination may be received.
In general, then, how is a mystic `way‟ (tariqah) described? The purity
which is the first condition as bodily purity is the prior condition of formal
Worship for Muslims is the purification of the heart completely from what is
other than Allah Most High, the key to it which corresponds to the opening act
of adoration in prayer,⁷ is the sinking of the heart completely in the
recollection of Allah; and the end of it is complete absorption (fana’) in Allah.
At least this is its end relative to those first steps which almost come within the
sphere of choice and personal responsibility; but in reality the actual mystic
„way‟ it is the first step, what comes before it being, as it were, the entrance
and the learning of the learned and the scholarship of the scholars, who are
versed in the profundities of revealed truth, brought together in the attempt to
improve the life and character of the mystics, they would find no way of doing
so; for to the mystics all movement and all rest, whether external or internal,
brings illumination from the light of the lamp of prophetic revelation; and
behind the light of prophetic revelation there is no other light on the face of the
earth from which illumination may be received.
In general, then, how is a mystic `way‟ (tariqah) described? The purity
which is the first condition as bodily purity is the prior condition of formal
Worship for Muslims is the purification of the heart completely from what is
other than Allah Most High, the key to it which corresponds to the opening act
of adoration in prayer,⁷ is the sinking of the heart completely in the
recollection of Allah; and the end of it is complete absorption (fana’) in Allah.
At least this is its end relative to those first steps which almost come within the
sphere of choice and personal responsibility; but in reality the actual mystic
„way‟ it is the first step, what comes before it being, as it were, the entrance