The Hikam of Ibn 'Ata' Allah, commented by Ibn 'Ajiba

By Rédaction soufisme.org · January 21, 2022 · 6 min read

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“If it were permitted to recite in the canonical prayer a text other than that of the Qur’an, the Hikam of Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah would be recited.”

This saying of Ibn ’Ajiba, the spiritual pole of his time and master of the Shadhili path, well indicates the eminent place of this sublime work. The Hikam (wisdoms) are indeed an inexhaustible source of reflection and teaching for our spiritual journey.

Composed in the thirteenth century by the shaykh Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari, they lead us into a meditation on a succession of timeless and eternal wisdoms. Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah composed them in his youth, and having submitted them to his master Abu-l-‘Abbas al-Mursi, the latter is said to have exclaimed: “My son, you have condensed in them everything the Ihya’ aims at, and more besides!” (referring to the Ihya’ ’ulum al-din, “the revival of the religious sciences”, the imam al-Ghazali’s major work).

An exegete who became a Sufi

Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah was born in Alexandria (Egypt) around the middle of the thirteenth century, into a traditional family versed in the legal sciences of Islam. There he received his whole intellectual education, that is, he acquired the learning required to be formally authorised to teach Islam’s official sciences: Arabic language, fiqh (jurisprudence), hadith, philosophy, Arabic grammar.

His opinion of the Sufis at that time was frankly negative: he asserted, for example, that “the only true people are those who occupy themselves with exoteric knowledge, but the Sufi group attributes to itself extraordinary things which the Law cannot admit”.

A radical change took place in him at his meeting with the Sufi shaykh Abu-l-’Abbas al-Mursi, who was to become his spiritual master: “I said to myself: why should I not go and see this man? He who possesses the truth has signs which reveal it. So I came to one of his gatherings… and I understood that this man was merely drawing from the overflowing of the divine ocean”. He was then about 20 years old, and he was to spend 12 years in the company of shaykh al-Mursi, whose spiritual heir he later became. It was shortly after this meeting that he wrote his Hikam, the fruit of flashes of spiritual inspiration.

A work studied from Alexandria to Damascus

For centuries, these hikam have been read, studied and meditated upon. They consist of some 260 aphorisms, complemented by epistles and letters addressed to disciples. They have drawn many commentaries, and were also adopted as a manual of Sufi teaching at the Qarawiyyin as at al-Azhar, in Tunis as in Damascus. Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah expresses himself in a precise and simple language, casting his thought into chiselled, concise formulas. They have, in appearance, no unity, their themes following one another without logical connection: one will therefore have to go beyond that logical requirement to recover the work’s unity beyond the form.

The work contains 267 wisdoms, followed by a series of epistles (rasa’il) and of intimate colloquies (munajat).

Ibn ’Ajiba’s commentary

One of the most widespread commentaries on the Hikam is that of Ahmad Ibn ’Ajiba, spiritual master of the Shadhili path. Ibn ’Ajiba was born in Tetouan around the middle of the eighteenth century. Just like Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah, Ibn ’Ajiba studied all the exoteric sciences of Islam assiduously during his youth: fiqh, Qur’an recitation, logic, Qur’anic exegesis, grammar, hadith science.

It was at that point in his life that reading the Hikam became a turning point which transformed his existence and his vision of things: “After that reading, I abandoned exoteric knowledge and devoted myself to devotional practice, to the remembrance of God and to the prayer upon the Messenger of God”¹.

Ibn ’Ajiba recounts that this period went on “until the moment when God took me in His hand by bringing me to meet our shaykh, the lordly gnostic, the incomparable solitary, Sidi Muhammad al-Buzidi al-Hasani, and his master, the pole of prophetic instruction and the source of the Darqawiyya brotherhood… (that is, the shaykh Moulay al-’Arabi al-Darqawi)”¹.

Ibn ’Ajiba was in turn to become a spiritual master, and his commentary on the Hikam, The Awakening of Spiritual Aspirations (Iqaz al-himam), unfortunately not yet available in a French translation, casts light with great depth on the wisdoms of Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah. Soufisme.org also intends to publish extracts from his commentaries on a regular basis.

A few hikam of Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah

“Ritual works are dead forms: life enters into them through the secret of pure intention.”

“He who wants something other than what God manifests in the present instant to come to pass is a perfect ignoramus.”

“With every breath you emit, He realises in you one of His decrees.”

“Observing the faults hidden within you is better for you than spying on the mysteries veiled from you.”

“True hope is accompanied by action. Otherwise, there is only wishful thinking.”

“Do not ask for a reward for your act, for you are not its author; let it be reward enough for you that He accepts it.”

“If you could reach Him only after the extinction of your bad propensities and the disappearance of your pretensions, you would never reach Him. But if He wills to bring you to Him, He will cover your qualities with His, and your attributes with His, and draw you to Him by a favour He grants you, and not as a result of your efforts towards Him.”

“If, every time you receive, your heart blossoms, and when you meet with refusal it contracts, see in that the proof of your immaturity and of your lack of sincerity in your service to God.”

“Empty your heart of all that is not God, and it will fill with knowledge and mysteries.”

“Happiness, whatever the variety of its aspects, truly exists only in the presence of God and His proximity. Suffering, whatever the variety of its aspects, exists only through the veil that hides Him. The cause of suffering is therefore the existence of the veil, and the perfection of happiness is the contemplation of His generous face.”

Two intimate colloquies (munajat)

“O my God! The variety of Your governance and the swiftness of the execution of Your decisions prevent Your servants who know You from resting in Your favour or from despairing when You put them to the test.”

“O my God! Teach me a share of Your reserved knowledge, and protect me by the mystery of Your secret name.”