16. An-Nahl

And God says, “And take not two gods. Surely He is only one God, so be in awe of Me.” This is an affirmation of tawḤīd. TawḤīd is the basis of the religion and the great pillar of the submission. Without tawḤīd obedience is not accepted, and along with associationism worship is useless. Know that the reality of tawḤīd is of two sorts: saying one and knowing one. Saying one is the beginning of all the sciences, the basis of all the recognitions, the foundation of the religion, and the partition between enemy and friend. It has three descriptions: first, testifying to God's oneness in Essence and His being pure of spouse, child, and peer. Next is testifying to God's oneness in attributes and to the fact that nothing is similar to or like Him. His attributes are not intelligible, nor is their howness understood, encompassed, or defined. They are outside imagination and no one knows how they are. Third is testifying to God's oneness in His true, beginningless names and the fact that for Him these names are realities and for others they are loaned and created. The names He has are His names in reality-eternal and beginningless as is fitting for Him. The names of the creatures are created and newly arrived as is fitting for them. “God” and “All-Merciful” are His names by which no one else is called. Dost thou know any named by His name? [19:65] As for knowing one, that is in service, practice, and aspiration. In service it is abandoning eye-service and observing self-purification. In practice it is to make the secret core limpid and to realize remembrance. In aspiration it is to lose everything other than Him and to be released through freedom of the heart from everything other than Him. Become free of everything in the realm of being- be that Heart-taker's “companion of the cave.” The Pir of the Tariqah said, “In all things expression is easy but finding is difficult. In tawḤīd finding is easy but expression is difficult. The expression of tawḤīd is outside of intellect, the es- sence of tawḤīd is safe against imagination, the newly arrived things are lost in the Beginningless. TawḤīd is that there is no more than one. There is the Recognized, but not the recognizer; there is the Intended, but not the intender. The tawḤīd-voicer is he who has only Him to the point that his self is not; all is indeed He.” The tawḤīd of attestation is one thing, the tawḤīd of practice another thing, and the tawḤīd of remembrance and vision still another. Concerning the tawḤīd of attestation He said, “Whoever disbelieves in idols and has faith in God” [2:256]. Concerning the tawḤīd of practice He said, “In whose hands is the dominion of everything” [23:88]. Concerning the tawḤīd of remembrance and vision He said, “Thou didst not throw when thou threwest” [8:17]. Abū Ḥafs Ḥaddād said, “TawḤīd by discernment is to disown everything other than God. The tawḤīd of the elect is to reach oneness. The tawḤīd of the elect of the elect is to be consumed by oneness.” O One whose tawḤīd is achieved by none! You are the Alone, the One, the Unique. Those who aim for His tawḤīd with their aspiration deny His tawḤīd inasmuch as they aim. The tawḤīd of him who confirms His tawḤīd …