Sayings of Ibn 'Ata' Allah al-Iskandari: Sufi quotations
Contents
Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (d. 1309), the Shadhili master of Alexandria, is the author of the Hikam, a compendium of Sufi wisdom commented on notably by Ibn ’Ajiba. A disciple of Abu’l-’Abbas al-Mursi, he is one of the great theoreticians of the spiritual journey.
Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam): knowing it is You who try me
Knowing it is You who try me and impose upon me the decrees of destiny softens the trials I endure. Man finds no escape from the divine decree! It leaves him no choice in his destiny.
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari: remembering God among the heedless
It is fitting that men remember God in the marketplace (in the town), by reason of this saying of the Prophet (pbuh): “He who remembers God among the heedless is like a fighter… or like a living man among the dead” (hadith).
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam): He gives you what suffices you
It is out of perfect benevolence towards you that God gives you what suffices you and deprives you of what would make you impious.
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari: empty your heart of all that is not God
Empty your heart of all that is not God; it will then fill with knowledge and mysteries.
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam): if people turn away from you
If it hurts you that people turn away from you or speak ill of you, return to the knowledge of God within you; if that knowledge does not suffice you, then your lack of contentment with the knowledge of God is a trial far graver than others’ slander. The aim of that slander is that you should not rest upon creatures; God wants to bring you back from everything, so that nothing may distract you from Him.
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari: the lights found your heart full
The Lights have often come to you, but they found your heart full of images of creatures. So they returned whence they came.
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam): a mine abounding in troubles
He made this lower world a place of vexations, a mine abounding in troubles, solely to prompt you to renounce it.
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam): You who have never ceased showering us
How can one place one’s hope in other than You, You who never interrupt Your blessings? How can one implore another than You, You who have never ceased showering us with Your bounties?
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam): my need of recourse to You
O my God! By Your providence (tadbir) spare me from preoccupying myself with myself; by choosing for me, spare me from choosing for myself; and keep me in the feeling of the necessity I am under of having recourse to You.
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari: here I am
Here I am! I draw near to You through my need of You!
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam): turning towards creatures
To turn towards God is to turn away from the creature, and to turn towards the creature is to turn away from God.
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam): he whose speech directs you towards God
Do not be the companion of one whose heart does not awaken you and whose speech does not direct you towards God.
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari: the need to relieve the needy
It is also necessary to relieve the needy. A servant must indeed be grateful for the favours God has granted him… Know that God tries the rich by the poor just as He tries the poor by the rich. “We have made some of you a trial for others; will you bear it? Your Lord sees all things” (Qur’an 25, 20). The poor constitute a divine favour for the rich: the latter have found here below someone to relieve them of their wealth. In the same way they will find God in the hereafter to relieve them of their sins.
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam): the devout and the ascetics
The devout and the ascetics isolate themselves from everything only because they find themselves cut off from God in it. If they contemplated Him in everything, they would not isolate themselves.
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari: constantly present to the shaykh
Do not require of the shaykh that he keep you in his thought; require rather of yourself that the shaykh be constantly in yours, for it is in the measure that you are present to the shaykh that he is present to you. (Answer of Shaykh Abu’l-’Abbas al-Mursi to a disciple who wished to be looked upon with solicitude by him and kept in his thought, khatir.)
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari: do not address reproaches to men
Do not spend your time addressing reproaches to men. You would only waste it, and time is so short! Why blame them, anyway, when you know that events unfold according to Destiny? They have not respected God’s own rights, and you would have them respect yours, despite your contemptible condition? Recognise rather what you owe them, and acquit yourself of your due! Pay them with your patience and be exacting towards yourself. And then consider things with the gaze of Him who knows the most infinitesimal of our secrets…
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam): chained by obligations
He knows how little eagerness men have to serve Him; so He imposed acts of obedience upon them, and thus brought them to Him, chained in the fetters of obligation. “God marvels at people led to paradise in chains” (hadith).
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam): the fruits of prayer
Knowing your weakness exists, He reduced the number of ritual prayers; and knowing how much you need His grace, He multiplied their fruits.
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari: the cure of disobedience…
The soul’s worldly satisfaction is evident and clear in disobedience, but hidden and subtle in obedience; and the cure of what is hidden is difficult.
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari
The man you see answering every question, expressing all he contemplates, mentioning all he knows: you may conclude that he is ignorant.
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam)
The Truth is not veiled; it is your eyes that carry a veil. For if a thing were to veil It, it would have covered It. And had it covered It, it would have limited It. And whatever limits a thing dominates it. Yet “He is the One who dominates His servants” (Qur’an 6, 18).
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam)
The heedless man thinks in the morning about what he will do in the day; the reasonable man thinks about what God will do with him.
Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam)
Sometimes hearts stop at the enjoyment of the Lights, just as passionate souls are dazzled by the opacity of outward things.
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam): nothing you can obtain…
Nothing you wish to obtain for your Lord is difficult. Nothing you wish to obtain for yourself is easy.
Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam): do not wait for your troubles to cease
Do not remain waiting for all your troubles to cease within you, for that prevents you from being attentive to Him alone in the state in which He has placed you.
Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam)
God has allowed you to look at what is in things, but not to stop at the things themselves. “Look at what is in the heavens and on the earth!” (Qur’an 10, 101). By the words “in the heavens” He opened for you the gates of understanding. He did not say “look at the heavens”, which would have led you to note the existence of the celestial bodies.
Ibn ‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam)
Those who journey towards Him are guided by the Lights of their orientation (tawajjuh).
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam): he would not be among those who invoke
Do not despise what his Lord sends him, if you do not see upon him the sign of the knowers or the sign of the lovers… Had he not received a spiritual gift, he would not be among those who invoke.
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam): the secret of sincerity
Works are dead forms. Only the secret of sincerity breathes life into them.
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari: the first thought of all
How many times have I desired a thing You wanted to keep away from me! Ceaselessly You showed Yourself towards me gentler and more merciful than I could be towards myself! So I resolved that if the least thought should assail me henceforth, You would be each time, and You alone, the first of all.
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam): searching for your faults
Searching for your faults is preferable for you to searching for the invisible things veiled from you.
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam): do not abandon invocation (dhikr)
Do not abandon invocation (dhikr) because you are not present to God in it, for your neglect of invocation is worse than your negligence within it. Perhaps He will raise you from an invocation done heedlessly to an invocation done vigilantly, and from an invocation done vigilantly to an invocation in which you become present, and from an invocation in which you are present to one in which you become absent to all that is other than the Invoked.
‘Ata’ Allah al-Iskandari (Hikam): loving without being a slave
You do not love a thing without being its slave, and He does not want you to be the slave of any other than Him.