Sufis

"When you recognize the Beauty, you will also recognize the Beloved and fall in love with Him."

"Become lover. Think both the worlds beauty of the Beloved and think own self the beauty of the Beloved."

"The beauty of worldly allurements makes it lovers so much oblivious that they forget the passage of temporal as well as celestial worlds. They fail to understand the challenge before them."

"Search your heart within where lies the key to all Divine mysteries, and where God has placed treasures of Divine, mystical and spiritual powers."

"Though Divine knowledge transcends all thoughts and symbols, yet the mystic's sincere meditation discovers the Ultimare Truth."

"O poor-fellow! Do you know what is renunciation and what is piety? It is that you don't go to the places of the king, nor roam about in quest of livelihood nor base yourself for sake of worldly wealth, nor sit in the company of the world lings."

"Fear is a whip of God for the undisciplined devotee. When the fear of God enters into the heart, it turns the flask of the heart into pieces."

"The seeker's real approach to God means his preoccupation with afflictions appearing on the way to Him. Tribulations in separation from God is to be treated as a boon granted by God to His elect."

"The spiritual state of nearness of God is a sign of true saintliness. This ultimately results in the experience of love and longing for early union."

"Communion with God is conferred after the dervish has become alien to all else."

"One's friendship with God consists in being satisfied with whatever comes from God and expresses his gratitude hundred thousand time that he was remembered by Him."

"The seekers on the path of God are a community who are overwhelmed in the ocean of love from head to nail of the foot."

"The gnostic (arif) attains the station of passionate love of God so that he may experience Godhead or His pure Essence."

"The saint enjoys real attachment to God when he experiences states of contentment and satisfaction."

"Detachment from worldly things is the most essential qualification required for a true dervish. His separation from everything, including his own self is the only way for the realization of kingship with God."

"The end of the gnostic is traceable 'when he is as he was where he was before he was.' The gnostic then has made easy effort to discharge his duty to God, and his gnosis is a realization of what God has given him; therefore he truly returns from things to God."

"Love is of two natures; the love which is tranquil, which is found among both the elect and the common folk, and the love which is rapture, which is found only among the elect. This is road which leads direct to God."

"The more inwardly pure a man is, the higher his rank and the nobler his station, so much the more arduously he labours, with sincerer performance and a great fear of God."

"Detachment from everything is avbsolutely necessary for the saint's unification with God. The meaning of detachment is that one should be detached outwardly from accidents, and inwardly from compensation."

"Humanity is not destroyed from men any more than blackness is destroyed from that which is black or whiteness from that which is white but that inborn qualities of humanity are converted and transformed by the all-powerful Light that is shed upon them from the Divine Realities. Those who inculcate the doctrine of Fana mean the obliteration of one's own deeds and works of devotion through the continuance of regarding God as the doer of those deeds on behalf of His devotee."

"Intellectual knowledge is ordinary, limited to the human faculties. It deals with the finite objects of the world of the creation of God; it is not concerned with the Creator. Gnosis (Marifat) is higher knowledge and directly deals with the Creator and the Divine Attributes. It is a gift of God."

"Gnosis (Marifat) is of three kinds: The gnosis of acceptance, the gnosis of reality and the gnosis of contemplation. And in the gnosis of contemplation, understanding and learning and explanation and disputation fade away."

"The Sufis are content with little in the way of worldly goods and are satisfied with the minimum of food to keep them alive; they limit themselves to the least that is necessary by way of clothing and bedding. They choose poverty rather than riches, embrace want and avoid plenty, prefer hunger to satisfaction and little to much. They renounce dignity and honour and rank, show compassion upon mankind and humility towards small and great."

"The more inwardly pure a man is, the higher his rank and the nobler his station, so much he assiduously labors with sincere performance and a great fear (of God)."

"The only guide to God is God Himself. Inspired by a great Sufi he believed; "God made us to know Himself through Himself, and guided us to knowledge of Himself through Himself, so that the attestation of gnosis arose out of gnosis through gnosis, after he who possessed gnosis had been taught gnosis by Him who is the object of gnosis."

"The mystic never returns to his selfhood after having experienced the state of Fana."

"There are two kinds of sainthood. The first is nearly a departure from anmity, and in this sense is general to all believers; it is not necessary that all individual should be aware of it or realise it. The second is a sainthood of peculiar election and choice, and this is necessary for a man to be aware of and realize. When a man possesses this, he is preserved from regarding himself, and does not fall into conceit. He does not take delight in any of the pleasure of the soul. Nevertheless he will not be divinely preserved from committing smaller or greater sins; but if he falls into either, sincere repentance will be close at hand to him"

"The doctrine of Tawhid is; "God is One, Alone, Single, Eternal, Everlasting, Knowing, Powerful, Living, Hearing, Seeing, Strong, Mighty, Majestic, Great, Generous. He is qualified with attributes wherewith he has named Himself. There is no Eternal but He, and no god beside Him; that He is neither body nor shape nor form nor person, nor element, nor accident."

"God reveals the truth behind the languages of the Quran to those whom He loves and who are true Sufis."

"The qualities of saintliness are; withdrawal from the world, inclining the soul awat from it, leaving all settled bodies, keeping constantly to travel, denying the carnal soul its pleasures, purifying conduct, cleansing the conscience, dilation of breast and quality of the leadership."

"Renunciation (Zuhd) is a noble station and it is the basis of all spiritual progress. It is the first step on the way to God. Without renunciation one cannot hope to make progress in this respect."

"Gnosis (Marifat) is fire and faith light, gnosis is ecstasy and faith a gift. He differentiates between the believer and gnostic saying that the believer sees by the light of God and the gnostic sees by means of God Himself, and the believer has a heart, but the gnostic has no heart."

"Trust in God is the last station on the Divine Path for nothing remains to be attained through mystical efforts after having experienced spiritual satisfaction."

"Lovers do not reach the height of true love until one says to the other, "O Thou who art I.""

"Before the time of prayer comes, the servant must be in a state of preparation and his attitude must be that which is essential for prayer, namely a state of reflection and recollection, free from wandering thoughts and consideration or remembrance of anything save God alone. Those who enter in this way upon prayer with heart intent only upon God, will proceed from prayer to prayer in that same state of recollection and will remain in that state after they have ceased to pray."

"He is a righteous man, famous among Maghrebians for religion and knowledge, and upon him the smelting of ascets and their tranquility"

"They adopted al-Matiti and al-Zawawi ***** as well as Ibn Sahl for every Zawi"

"I take love as my religion wherever its caravans lead, for love is my religion and my faith."

"Every self-manifestation bestows a new creation and removes a pre-ceding creation. Its removal is the essence of annihilation (fanaa) in the passing self-manifestation and subsistence (baqaa) in the bestowal of the following self-manifestation."

"His is the wisdom of singularity because he is the most perfect existent in the human species. That is why the whole affair began with him and is sealed with him. For he was a prophet while Adam was between water and clay. Then, in his elemental configuration, he was the Seal of the Prophets. And three is the first of the singulars. Every singular beyond one derives from it."

"In his youth he would say: "One should worship Him in his youth.""

"One should avoid rich neighbour, rich savant, and Quran reader on payment."

"The worst punishment from God is the separation from Him."

"O God! Whatever punishment you inflict upon me, do not punish me with the humiliation of being veiled from Thee."

"The entire world is worthless excepting five things: to eat for survival, to take water in order to slake thirst, clothes to cover body, house to dwell in, knowledge just to act upon."

"Sinning upto necessity might be pardonable but for self-conceit and pride it is unpardonable since sin of Adam was the accomplishment of desire and sin of Satan self-conceit."

"He who cannot bridle his own lower soul, how can he purify the same of others."

"Three veils must be removed from the traveler's heart so that the door of happiness is opened to him. First, should the dominion of both worlds is offered to him as eternal gift, he should not rejoice. The second veil is that if he possesses the dominion of both worlds, and should it be taken from him, he should not feel sorry for his poverty. The third is that he should not be misguided by any praise or favour, for one who is misguided like this, is a low person and the low person is veiled."

"If you like to be saint of God, then desire not the things of this world or the next. Empty yourself for God. Turn your face to Him so that He may turn to you and make you His saint."

"O God, thou knowest that is my eyes the eight Paradises have a little worth when they are compared with that honour which thou hast shown me in giving Thy love or that familiarity which Thou hast given me by he commemoration (dhikr) of Thy Name or that freedom from all else which Thou hast granted me when I meditate on the greatness of Thy Glory."