I heard Abū al-Ḥasan as-Salāmi say: A shaykh asked Fāṭima al-Barda‘iyya about the statement of the Prophet (may God bless and preserve him) relating [a saying] from his Lord: “I am the Companion of the one who remembers Me.”
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After he had argued with her about the meaning of the tradition for some time, she said: “No. Complete remembrance of God means that you witness yourself being remembered by the One you are remembering,
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while maintaining constant remembrance of Him. Therefore, your remembrance is annihilated in remembrance of Him, whereas His remembrance of you persists beyond place and time.”
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God says, “Surely the noblest of you with God is the most godwary” [49:13]. Tomorrow at the resurrection, every lineage will be broken except the lineage of godwariness.
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Everyone sheltered by godwariness today will be the neighbor of the Patron tomorrow. Thus it has been reported, “The people will be mustered on the Day of Resurrection.
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Then God will say to them, ‘It is a long time that you have been speaking and I have been silent. Today you be silent and I will speak. Surely I took away your lineages but you refused all but your own lineages.
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Nussimbaum was likewise a refugee from Russian Communism, but preached the precise opposite. Converting to Islam, he became ‘Essad Bey’ in 1925, living as a wayward Berlin novelist and popular historian.
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His bestselling biography of Lenin unveiled to the world the savage pretentions of scientism. Positivism slays the spirit and cannot supply ethics, but Europe’s indigenous spiritualities will be too weak to resist.
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Only the Eternal Orient offers a romantic and living alternative, and the Prophet is its symbol. Affirming life, nature and passion, the Prophet is the healer of a humanity driven mad by dry rationalism, and craving the primordial.
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Hazrat Babajan, like the mother of ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, also advised one to “always tell the Truth.”
As Annemarie Schimmel has highlighted, further study of the role of mothers in the development of Sufism
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could prove quite enlightening.
Many stories are told about pious sons who carried their aged mothers on their shoulders to enable them to partake in the pilgrimage to Mecca.
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It would be worthwhile to study the role of the mothers in the biographies of the Sufis. Although the energetic mother of Majduddin Baghdadi, herself an accomplished physician, is certainly an exception,
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You should not have the opinion that whatever He knew, He said; whatever He could do, He did; and whatever He had, He showed. The existent things and the created things are a sample of His power.
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Revelations and inspirations are an iota of His knowledge. Just as He sent a few rulings of His knowledge to the creatures and the knowledge did not reach the bottom,
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As for the wisdom in beginning with God, then the All-Merciful, then the Ever-Merciful, it is this: He sent this down in keeping with the states of the servants, who have three states—first creation, then nurturing, and finally forgiveness.
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God alludes to creation at the beginning through power, All-Merciful alludes to nurturing through the continuity of blessings, and Ever-Merciful alludes to forgiveness at the end through mercy.
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It is as if God said, “First I created through power, then I nurtured through blessings, and at last I forgave through mercy.”
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Among the saints is the woman master (shaykha), the long-lived knower of God, Rabi‘a [d. 1216], the daughter of the illustrious shaykh Abu Bakr al-Najari al-Wasitit.
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It is said in The Clarification that the noble lady, the perfect knower of God, the wife of Sayyid Ahmad [al-Rifa‘i], the mother of Sayyid Salih, the lady of the faqirs, Rabi‘a was sound of heart and pure of mind.
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She experienced divine attractions and constant sorrow. No one could blame her for anything before God. She had a beautiful life and admirable qualities. Sayyid Ahmad called her the “lady of the faqirs” and he also nicknamed her “the mother of the faqirs.”
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