THE FIFTY-SIXTH DISCOURSE On the servant’s becoming extinct to creatures, passions, the self, the will and desires

When the servant of God has vanished from creation and desire, and from his own self and purpose and wishes of this world and of the hereafter, he does not want anything except God, the Mighty, the Glorious, and everything goes out of his heart. It is then that he attains God Who selects him and chooses him and loves him and makes him loved by the creation, and also makes him such that he loves Him as well as His nearness and receives His favour through His grace and rolls in His blessings. He throws open to him the doors of His mercy and promises to him that He will never shut them against him. The servant then adopts God, the Mighty, the Glorious, and intends by His intention, and devises means by His devising, and wills a thing by His will, and feels pleased by His pleasure, and carries out His commandment and not anyone else's, and does not see any existence except His, the Mighty, the Glorious, nor any act. Then it pleases God that He makes to him promise and does not manifest its fulfilment to His servant, and the thing which the servant expects in this connection may not come to him, and this is because the scparateness disappears with the disappearance of desire and purpose and of the seeking of enjoyments. Then his whole self becomes the very act of God, the Mighty, the Glorious, and His object. So neither promise nor breach of promise can be spoken of in this connection because this kind of thing can be attributed to one who has desire and purpose. At this stage, the promise of God, the Mighty, the Glorious, in respect of such a person, can be illustrated by the example of a man who intends within his own self to do a certain thing, then turns the same intent towards something else in the same way as God, the Mighty, the Glorious, has recalled to our Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) with regard to revelations abrogating and abrogated as in the words: Whatever message We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring one better than it or one like it, Knowest thou not that Allah is Possessor of power over all things? (2:106) When the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), purified of desire and purpose except on certain occasions which God has mentioned in the Holy Qur'an, such as in the case of the prisoners on the day of Battle of Badr as in the following words: You desire the frail goods of this world, while Allah desires (for you) the Hereafter. And He is Mighty, Wise. . Were it not for an ordinance from Allah that had gone before, surely there would have befallen you a great chastisement for what you were going to do. (8:67-68) He (the Holy Prophet) was the object of God, whom He would not leave in one condition and in one thing and in one promise but He would shift him towards the decree of Destiny and leave the reign of Destiny to be handled by him; so He would move him and make him roll in the midst of Destiny and keep him alert by His words: Knowest thou not that Allah is Possessor of power over all things? (2:106) In other words, certainly you are in the ocean of His decreed Providence, the waves of which toss you sometimes this way and sometimes that. So the terminus of the affairs of the wali is the starting point of the affairs of the Holy Prophet. There is no stage after wilayat and badaliyat except the stage of nubuwwat.