Muhammad.com collection in 109 languages

33


(Ibn al-Mu‟tazz).

In general the man to whom He has granted no immediate experience at all,
apprehends no more of what prophetic revelation really is than the name. The
miraculous graces given to the saints are in truth the beginnings of the prophets;
and that was the first „state‟ of the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him when
he went out to Mount Hira‟, and was given up entirely to his Lord, and
worshipped, so that the Bedouin said, „Muhammad loves his Lord passionately‟.

Now this is a mystical ‟state‟ which is realized in immediate experience by
those who walk in the way leading to it. Those to whom it is not granted to have
immediate experience can become assured of it by trial and contact with mystics
or observation of them and by hearsay, if they have sufficiently numerous
opportunities of associating with mystics to understand that ecstasy with
certainty by means of what accompanies the „states‟. Whoever sits in their
company derives from them this faith; and none who sits in their company is