In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
My Dear Fati,
It seems that you have finally succeeded in your imposition on me to write a few lines, disregarding my excuses: old age, infirmity, and a full schedule. Now I will begin my speech with the blight of old age and of youth, both of which have afflicted me, or you could say, the ends of which I have reached. Now, inclining towards the barzakh, if not toward hell, I am wrestling with the minions of the angel of death.
Tomorrow, the black letter of my deeds shall be handed to me, and I shall be asked for an account of my misspent life. I have no answer, except my hope in the mercy of He Whose mercy embraces all things, He who revealed to the Mercy of Worlds: “do not despair of the mercy of Allah; surely Allah forgives sins.”
I take it that I am to be included among those to whom these ayat must be applied. But as for the ascension to the sacred premises of His greatness, and mounting to the neighborhood of the Friend, and joining in the banquet of Allah, to which one must arrive by means of the steps he himself has taken, how can it be?
In my youth, when I had vigor and ability, die to the machinations of Satan and his minion, the commanding self, I became preoccupied with various notions and grandiose expressions by which I acquired neither concentration nor a spiritual state, because I never took in the spirit of these things.
I didn’t go from the exoteric to the esoteric, from the earthly domain to the angelic domain. I finally realized that I did not gain anything from all the clamor of the casuistry of the seminary but some heart-rending words.
I was sunk so deeply among such expressions and such regards that instead of seeking to lift the veils, I collected books as if nothing else mattered in the entire world but a handful of papers.
In the name of the humanities, divine goals and philosophical truth, the seeker, who has been endowed with a divine nature, is diverted and sinks beneath a great veil.
The weighty tomes of The Four Journeys diverted me from my journey to the Friend; I acquired no opening from The Openings, nor any wisdom from The Bezels of Wisdom, let alone from other books, for each of which is another sad story. When I reached old age, with every step, I was gradually drawn away from that misfortune, until I reached senility, and what is beyond senility, with which I am now wrestling.
“And among you are some who are brought back to a most decrepit life, so that they do not know anything after they had known.
You, my daughter, are miles away from this stage. You have not savored its flavor. May God extend your life to such an age, but without its ill effects. You expect writings and discourses from me, and that in the form of a mixture of poetry and prose! You don’t seem to realize that I am neither a writer nor a poet nor an orator. You, my dear daughter, without having reached the stage of unripe grapes, wish to attain the stage of confection made from boiled ripe grapes! Know that a day shall come when, God forbid, you will bear the heavy burden of regret upon your shoulders for having misspent your youth with such infatuations while you let the higher things escape you, just as I have, I who have fallen behind in the caravan of lovers. So, listen to this wretched who bears such a burden on his shoulders, and who is bent beneath it. Don’t be satisfied with expressions such as these, which are a trap of the great Beelzebub.
Seek the Great and Glorious One! Youth with its delights and gratifications are soon past. I’ve been through it all, through all these, and now I’m wrestling with the chastisement of hell. The Satan within does not let up on me.
May Almighty God forbid that he should strike the last blow. But despair of the embracing mercy of the Divine is itself a grievous enormity. May God protect the sinner from such an affliction. It is said that at the end of his life, Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, that great murderer of history, said, “Oh God! Forgive me, even though I know that everyone says You will not forgive me!” Upon hearing of this, Shafi‘i said, “If he has said this, it may be (that he is forgiven).” But I don’t know whether that wicked man was blessed to say this or not, but I know that despair is worse than anything.
Oh my daughter, don’t be so overconfident of mercy that you neglect the Friend, nor should you despair and thus become one of those who has lost both this world and the hereafter. Oh God! By the five companions of the cloak, shelter Ahmad, Fati, Hasan, Rida (Yasir) and ‘Ali, who, we are proud to say, belong to the household of your dear Prophet, and to the household of his appointed one. Shelter them from the evils of Satan and from the desires of the soul. Here ends my speech, and God’s sentence upon me is complete. Peace!
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God Almighty always seeks for an excuse to shower His mercy