In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, and blessings be upon our leige Muhammad, the Opener and the Seal, and upon his family, according to the measure of his worth and his great dignity.

The silence of the Leige of the Gnostics and Imam of the Realized [the Prophet Muhammad], grace and benedictions be upon him, concerning many of the profound matters—such as the soul, predestination, the Divine Essence, and the attributes, and other subtle subjects of mystical science—was itself a tacit prohibition against delving into them; for most men are not fit to sail those perilous seas of gnosis. Yet when the saints of realization, whose sainthood is acknowledged by the consensus of the Umma, spoke upon them, they did so only by his implicit delegation, being appointed by him to unveil such mysteries for those duly qualified.

But as for those who have spoken on these matters without special permission—the Mutakallimun, speculative theologians, and philosophers—their inquiry is a trespass upon the prophetic boundary if pursued from mere curiosity. Yet they are excused and rewarded if necessity compelled them—such as to defend the faith from the doubts of heretics and safeguard the creed of the Muslims.

None among the Kalam theologians who have stumbled into this pitfall of intellectual temptation are rescued from it save those firmly rooted in knowledge, who derive from the prophetic unveiling—that is, from the inspiration bestowed upon the saints—which serves as the interpretation of what is obscure in the revealed Law.

Upon this principle is to be understood the story of our Imam, the noble Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, the Sword of God unsheathed against the heretics of his age. For though he, may God be pleased with him, from his long disputation and engagement with innovators, leaned at times toward some of their opinions, yet was he saved from the precipice over which he hung only by the Perfect Masters, such as our Shaykh Ibn ʿArabī, in whom God united the sciences of both acquisition [kasb] and gift [wahb].

To him Ibn ʿArabī addressed his famous epistle after hearing that Fakhr had once wept, and being asked why, replied:

A doctrine I held for thirty years has now been overturned by a proof that appeared to me this very hour; and I wept, saying—perhaps this new light is but like the former darkness.

Then Ibn ʿArabī wrote to him:

It behooves the intelligent man to seek from the sciences only that which perfects his own being and accompanies him wherever he goes—and that is naught but the knowledge of God Most High through divine gift and immediate vision.

And elsewhere in that letter he said:

It is impossible for him who knows only by reason and thought to find rest or repose, especially in the knowledge of God Most High; for it is impossible to know His Essence through rational inquiry. Why then, O my brother, do you remain in this snare, and enter not upon the path of spiritual exercises, struggles, and retreats—the very disciplines instituted by the Messenger of God, grace and benedictions be upon him?

Upon this foundation also rests that famous anecdote of our Imam al-Rāzī when an old woman, seeing him pass, was told, “This is the Imam who has gathered a thousand proofs for the existence of God.” She answered with native wisdom: “Had not a thousand doubts dwelt in his heart, he would not have needed a thousand proofs.”

The Imam wept and said, “O Lord, grant me the faith of the old women!”

Such is the firm faith that needs neither argument nor dialectic—the faith of the heart with which the three generations of goodness worshiped their Lord; a faith unshaken by the winds of speculation…

This is the faith nurtured in the company of the people of hearts and spiritual taste, polished by the breaths of the gnostics, whereby the simple commoner may reach heights that the masters of outward sciences could not attain though they lived the lifespan of Noah, nor taste a single drop from the oceans of their mysteries.

Thus I say: the people nearest to the Presence of Sainthood are the common folk—those whom God has preserved from the trial of intellectual pride; those who see not themselves, who despise their own ignorance and heedlessness. Such are soon prepared, when they meet the Perfect Guide, to receive the Most Holy Divine Effusion, as it is said: “Alms are only for the poor and the needy.”

But as for those self-satisfied with the sciences of form, frozen upon their outward meanings, beguiled by their own short understanding—these possess naught but worthless merchandise in the sight of the great masters. Of them hath their Lord spoken: “They deemed themselves self-sufficient, and God made Himself independent of them.”

Therefore was it counted among the wondrous miracles of the great Shaykh [Abu al-Hasan] al-Shādhilī, unparalleled in splendor, that he brought forty jurists to the knowledge of God…

~Shaykh Ahmad al-Hadi al-Hasani al-Tijani