بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
و الصلاة و السلام على أشرف المرسلين
و على اله و اصحابه أجمعين
It is necessary to bear in mind that the following article is the fruit of a lesson given by the Shaykh Sidi Muhammad Fawzi Al Karkari (qadas Allahu sirrah) to his murid, from heart to heart, without talking, and without resorting to the physical world (moulk). In other words, this is a lesson provided in the malakoute : therefore, the teachings and symbols it contains are the fruit of a dhikr made in the last third of the night, and not thoughts from a careless brain. This lesson occurs to the murid by the mention of the name Allah, after having received the idhn from a Shaykh mourabbi authentically linked to the beloved Prophet ﷺ
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “Every important matter that does not begin with « bismillâhi r-rahmani-r-rahim » is maimed.”
Among the people of Allah, the basmala holds a particular importance, as in it is the Secret and the key to all sciences, in accordance with the word of Sayidina Ali (karam Allahu wajhou): “All of which is in the Qur’ān is in al-Fātiḥah, and all of which is in al-Fātiḥah is in the basmala, and all of which is in the basmala is in the letter bā’, the secret of the letter ba’ is the dot, and I am the dot.”
We must be aware that there are many ways to approach the Holy Quran, and thus many ways to approach the basmala:
- The first way is to consider it as “kitab mastour”, meaning a Book written with letters, on pages held together in a precise order… This is the form we all know, whether we are muslim or not.
- The second way is to consider it as “kitab marqoum”, and Allah ﷻ mentions it as follows: “a sealed book (kitabun marqoum) which the brought near can see” [chapter 83 verse 21-22].
- The third way is to consider it as “kitab maknoun”, that Allah mentions in the verse: “Indeed, it is a noble Quran in a Book well-protected (kitabun maknoun) that only the purified touch.” [chapter 56 verse 77-79].
In this verse, Allah tells us that only the purified “al-moutaharoun” can touch this kitab maknoun, and in this saying we understand that this Book is very different from the one written with ink on paper pages that we put on a shelf, with anyone being able to take it and flip through its pages, whether being purified with wudhu or not, whether muslim or buddhist or christian or else. It clearly appears that the purity about which we are now speaking is not the one described in Islamic jurisprudence relating to ritual purification for example… likewise the Book which only the “purified” have access to is not the book we call Quran that we take and put on shelves as we choose. In addition, Allâh ﷻ mentions those we call in English “the purified” many times in the Quran, but there is a notable distinction which is not found in the translation, mentioning on the one hand « al-moutahharoûn » and on the other hand “al-moutatahhiroûn” :
Allâh ﷻ says: “Indeed, Allah loves those who are constantly repentant and loves those who purify themselves (al-moutatahhiroûn).” [chapter 2 verse 222]. He also says: “A mosque founded on righteousness from the first day is worthier for you to stand in. Within it are men who love to purify themselves; and Allah loves those who purify themselves (al-mouttahhiroûn).” [chapter 9 verse 108].
The difference between al-moutahharoûn and al-moutatahhiroûn lies in the fact that the first ones are those who reached complete purity of the heart, meaning that their heart is filled with divine Light and even the slightest atom of darkness does not remain in it. This is a very high spiritual level that only some of the chosen ones of Allah enjoy, those who received the grace of being able to enter the Jabaroute and stay in it. As for al-moutatahhiroûn, they are those who aspire to this maqâm, namely those who perceive the divine Light, those who journey towards it and enter it, but do not manage to stay in a complete Light net of any kind of darkness, they descend from this maqâm almost as soon as they reach it, and try again harder to enter it once more: those are al-moutatahhiroûn, meaning “those who seek purification (from all kind of darkness)”.
Said in a different way, the “kitâb mastoûr” is the book we have access to in the Moulk, the “kitâb marqoûm” is the one we have access to in the Malakoute, and the “kitâb maknoûn” is the Book we have access to in the Jabaroute. We are therefore going to present this lesson in the following way:
Jabaroute = Kitâb maknoûn
Malakoute = Kitâb marqoûm
Moulk = Kitâb mastoûr
To come back to the Basmala, which is the topic of this article, we all know how it is written in the Moulk, meaning in consideration of the “kitâb al-mastour”:
Here, some dots have been willingly enlarged as they are in direct relation to the writing of the Basmala, according to the “kitâb marqoûm”:
This results in the fact that the basmala in the malakoûte is a triangle consisting of three dots:
- The dot of the bâ’ located below the baseline, referring to its hidden nature: It is the dot of the Shaykh.
- The dot of the noun, the one of the murid, elevated above the baseline, apparent and providing its teachings to the aspirant.
- The two dots of the yâ’, concealed under the baseline, representing the Science of the first ones and the Science of the last ones (‘ilm ul-awwalin wa ‘ilmu l-akhirin). One of these two dots must inevitably return to is origin (which is the dot of the Shaykh), because the Baraka of this Science lies in the fact that it is taken from a lineage of Shuyukhs who are Muhammadan heirs. Should the murid omit or neglect the fact that without them he could not have accessed to anything, taking any credit, his Knowledge shall be withdrawn from him the same way it has been given to him. This is what we call as-salb, may Allah preserve us from it.
By attributing all the credit to the Shaykh, the murid forces this second dot of the yâ’ ar-Rahîm to return to its origin, and while he has not completely managed to do it, his situation can be considered the following way:
This is so we understand that when the murid seals the bay’a with an educator Shaykh authentically linked to Allah’s Messenger ﷺ, he sees the appearance of a Light in his heart… in other words, the Shaykh places in the heart of his murid an energy of divine origin, a Light thanks to which he progresses through the sirât al-moustaqîm, the path of rectitude. The Prophet ﷺ tells us: “I am leaving you upon the White Path, the night and day of which are the same.”
The White Path here is the Path of the Light, as the divine Lights the eye of the believer heart witnesses are not concerned by the night nor by the day. Sayiduna Ahmad ar-Rifa’i (radiAllâhu ‘anhu) said: “The sun of the one who loves You raised at night… it brightened and never set. The sun of the day lights the evening… but the suns of the hearts do not set.”
Once this Muhammadan seal is placed on the heart, the murid receives the spiritual fluxes and theophanies he intercepts with that same heart, and apprehends them thanks to his reason. The latter is first narrow and restricted, but thanks to the Dhikr and the intensification of his Light, the aspirant strengthens the ability of his heart to influence all his senses, thus his reason gets more and more able to conceive the divine Realities. When the Shaykh considers his murid’s progress high enough and that his Light has burnt enough of the veils covering his heart, he transmits the Secret of the Tawhid to him, by which the murid is introduced in the divine Presence. Needless to say that without Light, there is of course no Secret, considering the Secret is secret, it is precisely because the heart of the average creature does not have the ability to bear its Reality. Allâh –subhânahu wa ta’ala- says:
“Indeed, we offered the Responsibility to the heavens, the earth and the mountains. They declined to bear it and feared it; but man [undertook to] bear it. Indeed, he is unjust [to himself] and ignorant.” [chapter 33 verse 22]
By continuing the study of the last diagram, we come to the following:
The pathway of the murid is a quest to rectitude (istiqâma), and this rectitude consists of the murid becoming an Alif… et an Alif is necessarily constituted of at least three dots, which can be associated according to different considerations depending on the point of view. In this example, the point of view taken is to consider the top dot of the Alif of the murid as his heart, after having been sealed with the Muhammadan seal, meaning after his internal eye has tasted the vision of the theophanic Lights. Then, a Path of Light is drawn and links the dot of the heart (the dot of the noun ar-Rahmân) and the dot of the reason (the first dot of the yâ’ ar-Rahîm). As for the second dot of the ‘Ism ar-Rahîm, it is associated with the nafs of the murid, which gravitates and forms a disc of darkness around the center of the Alif of Light, in a plane perpendicular to the latter. Thus, the dot of the nafs has the tendency to draw the straight path heart/reason to itself, preventing the istiqâma of the Alif of the aspirant… The more the nafs is imposing, the more its attraction is strong, and the less straight is the path of the murid. Therefore, the task of the aspirant will consist in oppressing his nafs and force it to close in on itself, until it only occupies the center of what will become for him an Alif.
As we have explained earlier, this return of the Nafs to the center of the Alif corresponds to the desired return of one of the two dots of the yâ’ ar-Rahim to its origin (the dot of the bâ’ of the basmala)… in other words, the murid’s nafs (the dot of the yâ’) returns to its origin, materialized in the person of the Shaykh, meaning that when the disciple reaches this level and becomes an Alif, he is completely annihilated in his Shaykh : he does not think, does not see, does not feel but by him, by him and for him. The aspirant then see realization of the following verse in him:
“O reassured soul, return to your Lord, well-pleased and pleasing [to Him].” [chapter 89 verse 27].
