In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.

Praise be to God, Lord of the universes!

On the meaning of the saying of the Prophet, may God

bless him and give him peace, “He who knows himself,

knows his Lord.”

Praise belongs to God, before whose Oneness there is no

before, unless the before is He and after whose Singularity

there is no after, unless the after is He!

He was, and there was not with Him any before, nor after,

nor above, nor below, nor closeness, nor distance, nor

how, nor where, nor when, nor time, nor moment, nor

period, nor duration, nor manifested existence, nor place.

“And He is now as He was”. He is the One without

 oneness, the Singular without singularity. He is not

composed of name and named: for His Name is He and

His named is He and there is no name or named other

than Him. He is the First without firstness and the Last

without lastness. He is the Apparent without appearance

and the Hidden without hiddenness. I mean that He is the

very being of the letters of the Name ‘the First’ and the

Name ‘the Last’, of the Name ‘the Hidden’ and the Name

‘the Apparent’. There is no First nor Last, Apparent nor

Hidden except Him, without the letters (which form these

names) becoming Him or His becoming these letters.

Understand this so as not to fall into the error of those

who believe in incarnation: because He is not in anything

and no thing is in Him whether entering in or coming out.

It is in this way that you should know Him and not

through (theoretical) knowledge, reason, understanding or

conjecture, nor with the eye nor the external senses, nor

even with interior sight or perception. No one sees Him,

except Himself; no one reaches Him, except Himself; and

no one knows Him except Himself. He knows Himself

through Himself and He sees Himself by means of

Himself. No one but He sees Him. His very Oneness is His

veil since nothing veils Him other than He; His own Being

veils Him. His Oneness is concealed by His Oneness

without any condition.

No one other than He sees Him. No sent prophet, nor

perfect saint nor angel brought close knows Him. His

prophet is He; His Messenger is He; His message is He

and His word is He. He sent Himself, through Himself,

from Himself to Himself; there is no intermediary or

 means other than He. There is no difference between the

Sender, that which is sent and the one to whom it is sent.

The very existence of the letters of the prophetic message

is His existence. There is no other who could cease to be,

or have a name or be named.

Because of this, the Prophet (may God bless him and give

him peace) said, “He who knows himself, knows his Lord”.

He also said, “I knew my Lord through my Lord”. What the

Prophet meant by this, is that you are not you but you are

He and there is no you; and it is not that He enters into

you or comes out of you, or that you enter into Him or

come out of Him. He did not mean that you have being

and you are qualified by this or that attribute. What he

meant was that you never were and that you never will be,

whether through yourself, or through Him, or in Him or

 with Him. You have neither ceased to be nor are you

existent. You are Him and He is you, without any of these

imperfections. If you know your existence in this way, then

you know God; and if not, then not!

Most of those who claim to be knowers (of God) make the

knowledge of God dependent on the cessation of being and

on the cessation of that cessation. That is an error and a

clear oversight; the knowledge of God does not require

either the cessation of being nor the cessation of that

cessation, because things have no being and whatever has

no being cannot cease to be, since cessation implies the

prior existence of the thing that ceases to be. If you know

yourself as not having being and (consequently) not

ceasing to be, then you know God; and if not, then not!
 By making the knowledge of God dependent on the

cessation of being and the cessation of this cessation, there

is an affirmation of polytheism. The Prophet said, “He who

knows himself, knows his Lord”. He did not say, “He who

ceases to be, knows his Lord”. The assertion of something

other than God is incompatible with its cessation; or else

this assertion is impossible, and it follows that its cessation

is also impossible.

Your being is nothing and whatever is nothing cannot be

placed in relationship to anything else, whether it is

capable of cessation or not and whether it is existent or

non-existent. The Prophet alluded to the fact that you are

non-existent now as you were non-existent before

creation, because now is Eternity-without-beginning and

now is Eternity-without-end and now is Timelessness. God

is the very being of Eternity-without-beginning, Eternity-

without-end and Timelessness even though (in reality)

there is no Eternity-without-beginning, Eternity-without-

end nor Timelessness. If it were otherwise, He would not

be alone, without anything being associated with Him, and

it is necessary for Him to be alone without any associate.

His associate would have being through its own essence,

and not through the being of God. Then that associate

would not need God and would therefore be a second

Lord, which is impossible: God has no associate, nor equal,

nor like.

Whoever sees anything whatsoever with God, coming out

of Him, or within Him, but nevertheless dependent on

Him by virtue of His Lordship, has also made that thing an

associate even though this associate depends on Him by

 virtue of His Lordship: whoever accepts that there could

be anything whatsoever with God – whether subsisting by

itself or through Him, whether it is in a state of cessation

of being or cessation of cessation – is far from breathing

the scent of self-knowledge. Because whoever accepts that

there could be another being than His, yet subsisting

through Him and in Him, then ceasing to be in successive

stages of cessation, and cessation of cessation – which is

polytheism upon polytheism and not knowledge of the self

at all – is a polytheist and he does not know God, nor

himself.

If someone asks, “What is the way to knowledge of the self

and knowledge of God?” the answer is that it consists in

knowing and verifying that “God was, and nothing was

with Him; and He is now as He was”.

If someone then says, “I see myself as other than God and I

 do not see God as myself”, the answer is as follows:

The Prophet meant, by the word ‘self’, your being and your

essential reality and not the self which is called the

‘blaming self’ nor the ‘commanding self’ nor the self which

is called the ‘confident or peaceful self’; by the self, he was

alluding to everything that is other than God, like when he

said, “O God, show me things as they are!” He meant by

things whatever is other than God; so that this prayer

means, “Make me know what is other than You so that I

may know what things are – whether they are You or other

than You, whether they are eternal and subsistent, or

newly happening and temporal”. Then God showed him

what is other than Him as Himself, without the existence

of what is other than Him. So he saw things as they are,

that is, he saw them as the essence of God – may He be

 exalted! – without how or where. The word ‘things’ may

equally well be applied to the self or to other things, the

existence of the self being similarly in the category of

things. When one knows the things, one knows oneself and

when one knows oneself, one knows the Lord: because

what you think is other than God is not other than God but

you do not know it. You see Him and you do not know that

you see Him.

When this secret is revealed to you, you will know that you

are not other than God but that you yourself are the object

of your quest. You do not need to cease to be – you have

not ceased and never will cease to be, without time and

without moments, as we have already mentioned. You will

see His attributes as your attributes, your exterior as His

exterior, your interior as His interior, your first as His first

 and your last as His Last, without any doubt or

uncertainty. You will see your attributes to be His

attributes and your essence to be His essence, without

your having to become Him and without His having to

become you in the least degree.

“Everything passes away except His Face” both in the

exterior and the interior, which means: there is no existent

but Him; nothing other than Him has being and therefore

has to pass away so that His Face remains. There is

nothing except His Face.

It is like when someone who previously did not know

something, knows it: the (unknowing) being does not

vanish to be replaced by another; nor is there a mixing or

interpenetration of the being of the ignorant person and

 the one who knows: ignorance has simply disappeared.

Do not think therefore that it is necessary to cease to be:

because if cessation of being were necessary, that would

mean that you veil Him. He would therefore be veiled by

another than Himself, which would necessarily imply that

another than Him can have power over Him and prevent

Him from being seen. That is an error and oversight: as we

have already said, His veil is His Oneness and His

Singularity is not other than it. That is why the person who

has reached the essential Truth is permitted to say: “I am

the Truth” or “Glory to me!” No one has truly reached Him

unless he sees his attributes to be the attributes of God and

his essence to be the essence of God; without his essence

or his attributes ever entering into God or coming out of

Him and without his passing away from God or remaining

 in Him. He sees that his self has never been his own and

not that it was, then ceased to be. Because there is no self

except for the Self, and there is no being except His Being.

This is what the Prophet was alluding to when he said, “Do

not revile the Era, because God is the Era”, and God, may

He be blessed and exalted, is unblemished by any

associate, or equal or like.

It is also reported that the Prophet said, “God – may He be

exalted! – said: ‘O son of Adam! I was sick and you did not

visit Me. I was hungry and you did not feed Me. I asked of

you and you did not give to Me…’.” This alludes to the fact

that the being of the one who asks is His Being. When that

is admissible, it is also admissible that your being is His

Being and the being of all created things – whether

substances or accidents – are His Being.

When the secret of an atom is discovered, the secret of all

created things is discovered, whether they are apparent or

hidden, and you stop seeing the two worlds as other than

God – although the two worlds, their names and what they

name do not exist, or rather, their names and what they

designate, and their very existence are Him, without any

doubt. You do not see God as having ever created anything

but as being “every day in a different configuration”, which

sometimes reveals Him and sometimes conceals Him,

without any condition: since “He is the First and the Last,

the Apparent and the Hidden and He has Knowledge of

everything”. He manifests Himself by His Oneness and

hides Himself by His Singularity. He is the First in His

Essence and His Self-subsistence and the Last in His

Everlastingness. He is the very being of the Name ‘the

First’ and the Name ‘the Last’, of the Name ‘'the Apparent’

and the Name ‘'the Hidden’. He is His own Name and

(what is) named. Just as His existence is necessary, the

non-existence of what is other than Him is necessary. In

fact, what you think is other than Him is not other than

Him. Other than Him is Him; His transcendence does not

permit that other than Him is really other than Him: other

than Him is Him without there being any otherness,

whether this is with Him, or in Him, in the interior or the

exterior.

Whoever is qualified in this way has innumerable

attributes without limit or end. Just as the person whose

physical form passes away is deprived of all their

attributes, whether they are praiseworthy or blameworthy,

so the person who dies a symbolic death has all his

 attributes, whether praiseworthy or blameworthy, taken

away from him and God comes into his place in all his

states. The Essence of God comes into the place of his

essence and the attributes of God come into the place of

his attributes. Because of this, the Prophet said, “Die

before you die”, that is, “Know yourself before you die”. He

also said, “God said, ‘My servant does not stop

approaching Me with free acts until I love him. And when I

love him, I am his hearing, his sight, his hand…’ ”, which

refers to the fact that whoever knows himself sees his

whole being as the very Being of God, without any change

in his essence or attributes. There is no need for any

change since he was not the existence of his essence but

was simply ignorant of the knowledge of himself.

When you know yourself, your I-ness disappears and you

know that you are no other than God. If you had an

autonomous being, you would have no need of cessation of

being, nor of self-knowledge; you would therefore be a lord

besides Him. However, it is inadmissible that another lord

should exist besides God – may He be blessed and exalted!

The benefit of the knowledge of the self is to know for

certain that you are neither existent nor non-existent, that

you are not, never have been and never will be. In this way

the meaning of “There is no divinity but God” will become

clear: there is not any god other than Him, being belongs

to no one but Him, there is no other besides Him, there is

no god but He!

If someone objects, “You make His Lordship superfluous”,

the reply is:

I do not make His Lordship superfluous, because He has

not ceased to be both Lord and the lorded over, just as He

has never ceased to be both Creator and what is created;

“and He is now as He was”. His Creativity and His

Lordship do not need what is created or subject to Him.

When He brought the creatures into existence, He was

already endowed with all His attributes. “And He is now as

He was”. There is no difference in His Oneness between

the external aspect and the eternal: the external aspect

requires His manifestation and the eternal requires His

Hiddenness. His exterior is identical to His interior and

His interior to His exterior; His beginning is the same as

His end and His end is the same as His beginning and all is

One and the One is all. He was described as ‘every day in a

different configuration’, when there was no ‘thing’ other

than Him. “And He is now as He was”, and there is no

being to what is other than Him in reality. Just as in

 Eternity-without-beginning and Timelessness, He was

“every day in a different configuration” when no thing

existed, so He is now as He was, although there is no thing,

nor day, just as there was, from all eternity, neither thing

nor day. The existence of the creatures and their non-

existence are the same. If it were not so, it would require

the origination of something which was not (already) in

His Oneness, and that would imply imperfection – and His

Oneness is far more exalted than that!

When you know yourself in this way, without attributing

any opposite, like, equal or associate to God, then you

really know yourself. That is why the Prophet said: “He

who knows himself, knows his Lord” and not “he who

ceases to be, knows his Lord”; because he knew and saw

that there is nothing beside Him. Then he pointed out that

the knowledge of the self is the knowledge of God. In other

words, “Know yourself”, or “know your being, because you

are not you but you do not know it”. That is, “know that

your being is not your being nor other than your being.

You are not existent and you are not non-existent; nor are

you other than existent or other than non-existent. Your

being and your not-being are His being, without any being

or absence of being because your being and your not-being

are the same as His Being and His Being is the same as

your being and not-being.”

So if you see things without seeing anything else with God

or in God, but see things as Him, then you know yourself

and such a knowledge of the self is knowledge of God,

without doubt or uncertainty, without mixing anything

temporary with the eternal, whether in Him, or through

 Him.

If someone now asks you: “What is the way to union? You

assert that there is no other than Him; but one thing

cannot be united to itself!” then this is the reply:

Actually, in reality there is no union, nor separation, nor

distance, nor closeness; because union is only possible

between two things and if there is only one there can be no

union nor separation. Union requires two things which are

either similar, in which case they are equal, or dissimilar,

in which case they are opposites, and He, may He be

exalted, is far above having any opposite or equal:

therefore union lies in something other than union,

closeness in something other than closeness and distance

is something other than distance. There is union without

union, closeness without closeness and distance without

 distance!

If someone says to us: “We understand union without

union. But what does closeness without closeness and

distance without distance mean?”

– the reply is:

I mean that in those times of closeness and distance, you

were not other than God – but not being at that time a

knower of yourself, you were unaware that you are Him,

without there being a you. When you reach God, that is,

when you know yourself in a way that is beyond all

condition, you know that you are Him, and you did not

know before whether you were Him or other than Him.

When knowledge comes upon you, you know that it is

through God that you know God and not through yourself.

Suppose, for example, that you do not know that your

 name is Mahmud, or that what your name designates

(your named) is Mahmud – for the name and the named

are in fact one and the same thing – and that you think

that your name is Muhammad. If you then learn that you

are really Mahmud, you do not cease to be what you were;

the name Muhammad is simply taken away from you

because of your knowledge of yourself – that you are

Mahmud and you were only Muhammad by ceasing to be

yourself; because ceasing to be presupposes the

affirmation of the existence of what is other than Him and

whoever affirms the existence of what is other than Him

has attributed an associate to Him. Nothing has been

taken away from Mahmud; Muhammad did not pass away

into Mahmud; nor did Mahmud enter into Muhammad

nor come out of him; and Mahmud did not become

incarnated in Muhammad. When Mahmud knew himself,

 that he was Mahmud and not Muhammad, he knew

himself through himself and not through Muhammad;

because Muhammad never was, so how could anything be

known through him?

Therefore the knower and the known are one; so are the

one who arrives and what he arrives at, and the seer and

the seen. ‘The knower’ is His attribute and ‘the known’ is

His essence; ‘the one who arrives’ is His attribute, and

‘what he arrives at’ is His essence. In fact, the attribute and

that to which it is attributed are one. That is the

explanation of the saying, “He who knows himself, knows

his Lord”.

Whoever understands this example knows that there is no

union, nor separation; the knower is He and the known is

He; the one who sees is He and what is seen is He; the one
 who arrives is He and what he arrives at is He. No other

than He reaches union, no other than He separates from

Him. Whoever understands that is free of the polytheism

of polytheism; whoever has not understood it has not

breathed the scent of this freedom from polytheism.

Most ‘knowers’, who think that they know themselves and

their Lord and think they are free of the bonds of

existence, declare that the way can only be traversed by

ceasing to be, then by the cessation of cessation. That is

because they do not understand the saying of the Prophet

and, believing themselves to be free of polytheism, they

allude sometimes to the ‘negation of existence’', that is, to

the obliteration of existence, sometimes to cessation or the

cessation of cessation; and sometimes to effacement or

annihilation. All these expressions are unadulterated

 polytheism because whoever accepts that there could be

something beside Him which is subsequently capable of

cessation, then of cessation of cessation, affirms that there

is something other than Him: and whoever affirms that is

a polytheist. May God guide them and us to the right Path!

Poem

You thought that you were you,

But you are not you and never were!

For if you were you, you would be a Lord

And the second of two! Stop what you were thinking

Between His Being and your being, there is no difference.

He is not distinct from you, nor you from Him.

If, out of ignorance, you declare that you are other than

Him, your obstinacy is obvious

But if your ignorance ceases, then you become yielding.

 Because your union is separation, your separation union

And your distance is closeness: through that you will

become suitable.

Abandon the intellect and understand by the light of

unveiling.

So that what is from Him by way of attribute is not

superior to you.

Do not associate anything with God

So that you are not debased, because polytheism debases.

If someone says, “You show that your knowledge of

yourself is the Knowledge of God. But he who knows

himself is other than God. So how can that which is other

than God know God? How can it reach (union with) Him?”

the answer is:

 Whoever knows himself knows that his being is not his

being, nor other than his being, but that he is the very

Being of God, without his being becoming the Being of

God, or entering into God or coming out of Him, and

without his being existing with Him or in Him. He sees his

being as it was before coming into being, without the need

for cessation, effacement or cessation of cessation; because

the cessation of something implies that previously it was,

and that implies in turn that it exists by itself and not by

the power of God: which is evidently a pure impossibility.

It is clear that the knowledge that the knower has of

himself is the knowledge that God has of Himself, because

his self is no other than He.

By the word ‘self’, the Prophet meant ‘being’. For whoever

reaches this spiritual station, his being is no longer his

 being, neither inwardly nor outwardly, but it is the very

Being of God: his speech is His Speech, his actions are

God’s actions. His claim to the knowledge of God is his

claim to the knowledge God has of Himself through

Himself. But you hear this claim as though it came from

him, you see his actions as though coming from him, you

see him to be other than God, just as you see yourself as

other than God, because of your ignorance of your real

being.

If “the faithful one is the mirror of the Faithful One”, then

he is He in His eye, that is through His sight for if his eye is

God's eye and his sight is God's sight, without any

condition, he is not He through your eye or your

knowledge, your understanding, your imagination, your

thought or your vision: but he is He in His eye, His

 knowledge and His vision.

If [this knower] says, “I am God!” listen to him, because it

is God who is saying “I am God!” not him, but you have not

reached the point that he has reached, since if you had

arrived at it, you would understand what he says and you

would say what he says and you would see what he sees.

In short, the existence of things is His existence, without

their existing. But do not fall into confusion and do not let

these allusions lead you to imagine that God is created!

One of those who know has said: “The Sufi is uncreated”

and it is like that after the complete unveiling and

dissipation of doubts and conjecturing. But this spiritual

nourishment is only for the one whose nature is more vast

than the two worlds; and as for the one who is like the two
 worlds, it does not agree with him, for it is even more

immense than them!

Know, in short, that the seer and the seen, the one who

finds and what is found, the knower and the known, the

One who existentiates and what is existentiated, the

perceiver and the perceived are one. He sees, knows and

perceives His Being by means of His Being, beyond any

manner of sight, knowledge and perception and without

the existence of (the letters of) the form of sight,

knowledge and perception. Just as His Being is beyond all

condition, so the vision, knowledge and perception which

He has of Himself are without condition.

If someone asks, “In what way do you see all the distasteful

and agreeable things? When we see, for example, dung or

 carrion, do we say it is God?” Then the reply is:

God forbid that God, may He be exalted and sanctified,

should be any such thing! Our converse is with him who

does not see dung as dung, nor carrion as carrion. We are

only speaking to him who is endowed with inward vision

and not with the one who is born blind. Whoever does not

know himself is blind and does not see. Until his blindness

and lack of vision disappears, he will not grasp these

meanings. Our converse is with God: not with other than

God, and not with the blind. Whoever reaches this

spiritual station knows that he is no other than God. We

are speaking with the one who has resolution and energy

in seeking to know himself in order to know God, and who

keeps fresh in his heart the image of his seeking and

longing for union with God; and not with him who has
 neither aim nor end.

If someone objects, “God has declared ‘'Eyes do not

perceive Him but He perceives the eyes. And He is the

Subtle One, the Well-informed!” but you maintain the

contrary, so what you are saying is not true”, the response

is:

Everything that we are saying is the very meaning of His

Word: “Eyes do not perceive Him, but He perceives the

eyes”, that is, there is no one else in existence, so no one

has sight which can perceive Him. If it were conceivable

for there to be someone other than Him, then it would

follow that this other could perceive Him. But God has

informed us in His saying, “Eyes do not perceive Him” that

there is no other besides Him, which means that no other

 than He perceives Him, rather He who perceives Him is

Himself. There is no other than He. He is the one who

perceives His essence, not another. Eyes do not perceive

Him because they are nothing but His Being. Whoever

maintains that eyes do not perceive Him because they are

transient and what is transient cannot grasp what is

eternal and everlasting, still does not know himself. For

there is nothing, and there are no eyes which are not Him.

He perceives His own being without the existence of

perception, without condition and without other.

Poem

I knew the Lord through the Lord

without doubt or hesitation.

My essence is really His essence

without fault or imperfection.

 There is, between us, no becoming

And my self is the place where the Hidden appears.

Since I have known Him, my self is

without mixture or blemish.

I reached union with my Beloved,

without distance or closeness.

I obtained from the Munificent One a gift,

without giving and without depriving.

My self did not vanish in Him

Nor does vanishing remain in Him.

If someone asks, “You affirm God and you deny the

existence of everything else; so what are these things that

you see?” the answer is this:

These words are for him who sees nothing apart from God.
 We have no questions and answers with him who sees

something beside God, for he only sees what he sees. He

who knows himself does not see other than God, but he

who does not know himself, does not see God. Each

receptacle only exudes what it contains. We have already

explained a great deal and if we explained more, whoever

does not see will still not see, nor understand, nor

comprehend; but whoever sees, sees, understands and

comprehends already. A hint is enough for the one who

has arrived (at union). As for him who has not arrived, he

will not arrive by theoretical teaching, nor by instruction,

nor by repetition, nor by reason, nor by learning, but only

by placing himself in the service of an eminent master and

a wise teacher, following the spiritual path, in order to be

guided by his light and to progress by means of his

spiritual will, so reaching thereby what he is seeking, if

 God wills.

May God grant us success in what He loves and in what

satisfies Him in words and deeds, knowledge and practice,

light and guidance. He is powerful over everything and is

capable of responding to every demand.

There is no power nor strength save in God, the Sublime,

the Magnificent!

May peace and blessings be upon the Prophet, his family

and friends!