Ali: The Seasoning of Divine Love

🌼🔆🌼“Ali, peace be upon him, is the eternal veil of God”  “Experience beyond knowledge”🌼🔆🌼

🔅🌹 “Being with God is beyond communication”  “The constellation of knowledge”  “Beyond the sign” “The dimensions of knowledge” “Knowledge with a taste” and more…       1402.11.05    Ali Saei (Abdullah Meshkat) 110.141(903)  🌹🔅

🌹🔅☘️ بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحيمِ ☘️🔅🌹

🌼🌱O Most Exalted, by the truth of Ali🌱🌼

🌷🔆 Ah, what a wondrous, divine miracle!

🔆 The Most Excellent of creators made a part of the world the dwelling place of His entire world, and perfumed the earth for the Prince of His Throne.

🌷🔆 May the peerless manifestation of merciful love for the dwellers on earth and in heaven be blessed!

🔅🌼Overview 🌼🔅

🌹The relationship between God and His servant is not grounded in knowledge, but in what lies beyond it.

🌹Maʿrifa is a distinctive innovation in the relationship between God and His servant.

🌹O God, immerse me in Your fervent love through my knowledge of Ali.

🌹Ali, peace be upon him, is the supreme manifestation of God’s love.

🌹O God, make Ali known to me—that is, acquaint me with Your love.

🌹The relationship between God and His servant is not a relationship of knowledge, but one that transcends knowledge. Through maʿrifa, God’s servant enters a distinctive stage in their relationship with their Creator.

🌹How can one who is poor oneself guide us to the One who is rich?

🌹In the realm of knowing God, God Himself is sufficient to make Himself known.

🌹God’s Messenger and His Proofs know God through God Himself. God Himself makes His Messenger, His Quran, and His wali known to us.

🌹God is the One who makes the sign a sign. As we seek to know God’s Messenger and Proof, we turn to God’s threshold and ask Him to make known to us His greatest and mightiest signs, so that through this, too, we may attain further divine grace.

🌹We need no signs in order to know God, yet through signs a new and unprecedented stage of knowing comes into being.

🌹Through prophethood and wilayah, we experience a new flavor of servitude.

🌹Beyond the soul, we are in communion with the Giver of life. We were with Him; now, with soul and beyond the soul, we discover anew what it is to be with Him.

🌹From beyond the soul to the soul, and now with the soul, we draw near to the Giver of life. Then, with heart and soul, we reach a new stage of servitude; we are equipped with new faculties of hearing, sight, and understanding, and our servitude grows ever more abundant.

🌹We were with Him without a heart; with a heart, too, we come to be with Him.

🌹O God, grant me life, so that I may be with You in soul; grant me a heart, so that I may be with You in heart as well; then grant me a world, grant me its means, so that with all of these I may once again be with You.

🌹Make me flourish in servitude; infuse Your knowledge into my soul.

🌹O God, I long to taste Your servitude through the states of ʿayn Allahi, idhn Allahi, and more.

🌹Through His Messenger and Proofs, Almighty God added salt and seasoning to His love. O God, grant me Your favor! I want my servitude to take on the flavor of Muhammad, Hasan, Husayn, Sajjad, Baqir, Sadiq, Kazim, Ridha, Jawad, Hadi, Askari, and Mahdi.

🌹Maʿrifa is the middle realm of servitude to God; servitude itself, too, lies at the midpoint of the relationship between God and His servant.

🌹To experience being with God in its many kinds and flavors.

🌹“Nearness, distance, and the path” mark a new unfolding of servitude to God.

🌹God cherishes His servants through Muhammad and his family.

🌹Encountering God through the veil of God has its own special delight.

🌹How beautiful it is to experience the worship of God in all its flavors and adornments.

🌹Love for ʿAli is the spark between God and His servant, kindling a restlessness in the love of worship.

🌹Love for ʿAli is practice and training in the love of the Divine.

🌹God, the Mighty and Majestic, draws us near to Him through love for ʿAli.

🌹ʿAli is the gateway and threshold of divine love.

🌹Through the light of our soul, the spirit comes to know a reality; through absolute immediacy, the soul finds its Beloved, and through means, it gains new experiences in servitude.

🌹The rope of God is a distinctive realm of knowing.

🔅🌼Trans-communication and trans-knowledge🌼🔅

Being with God begins in a realm beyond communication and reaches the stage of communication: God’s innovation for His servant, enabling them to discover being with God through the art of communication.

Human beings have stepped from trans-knowledge into knowledge, for Allah, Blessed and Exalted, has no need to be introduced. Knowledge begins with the Lord’s renewed care for His servant, leading from trans-communication and trans-knowledge to the place where He tenderly nurtures His servants.

God’s servant is equipped, from beyond the soul, with soul, heart and senses, so that renewed life may endure.

The stage beyond the soul cannot be described. To know God through the soul is to know Him in absolute immediacy; this is the stage of « اللَّهُمَّ عَرِّفْنِي‏ نَفْسَكَ‏». Knowing God through the heart may be associated with the stage of « اللَّهُمَّ عَرِّفْنِي رَسُولَكَ», and knowing God through systems, instruments and senses with « اللَّهُمَّ عَرِّفْنِي حُجَّتَكَ» communication.

🔅🌼The arts of knowing🌼🔅

The arts of knowing have three dimensions: immediacy, messengership and divinely appointed authority.

The first class in knowing God is a class without the involvement of any means or intermediaries. The second class is knowing God through messengership, and the third is knowing God through divinely appointed authority. Each new class can be held only after the previous one has been completed and passed.

Knowledge may be understood as the highest manifestation of the attention of the Majestic Essence.

God, who has no need of signs, creates signs of messengership and divinely appointed authority for Himself, so that He may renew His creation’s signs, from beyond all signs.

In wisdom, every verse is a mark and sign of Him. The highest and most exalted signs are messengership and divinely appointed authority.

Knowing messengership and divinely appointed authority means knowing them in all their dimensions, across land and sea and through the veils.

🔅🌼The constellation of knowing God🌼🔅

🌷🔆اللَّهُمَّ عَرِّفْنِي‏ نَفْسَكَ‏ فَإِنَّكَ إِنْ لَمْ تُعَرِّفْنِي نَفْسَكَ لَمْ أَعْرِفْ نَبِيَّكَ اللَّهُمَّ عَرِّفْنِي رَسُولَكَ فَإِنَّكَ إِنْ لَمْ تُعَرِّفْنِي رَسُولَكَ لَمْ أَعْرِفْ حُجَّتَكَ اللَّهُمَّ عَرِّفْنِي حُجَّتَكَ فَإِنَّكَ إِنْ لَمْ تُعَرِّفْنِي حُجَّتَكَ ضَلَلْتُ عَنْ دِينِي‏[1]

🔆O God, let me know You, for if You do not make Yourself known to me, I will not know Your Messenger. O God, let me know Your Messenger, for if You do not make Your Messenger known to me, I will not know Your Proof. O God, let me know Your Proof, for if You do not make Your Proof known to me, I will stray from my religion.

🌹« اللَّهُمَّ عَرِّفْنِي‏ نَفْسَكَ » means: O God, You are the First and You are the Last. It means: O God, no one can know You unless You so will. It means: O God, awaken my innate nature, revive my remembrance, turn me towards You, bring me out of heedlessness; remember me, and do not forget me.

🔅🌼God is the light that illuminates all beings🌼🔅

🌷🔆إِلَيْكَ كَيْفَ‏ يُسْتَدَلُّ عَلَيْكَ بِمَا هُوَ فِي وُجُودِهِ مُفْتَقِرٌ إِلَيْكَ أَ يَكُونُ لِغَيْرِكَ مِنَ الظُّهُورِ مَا لَيْسَ لَكَ حَتَّى يَكُونَ هُوَ الْمُظْهِرَ لَكَ‏ مَتَى غِبْتَ حَتَّى تَحْتَاجَ إِلَى دَلِيلٍ يَدُلُّ عَلَيْكَ وَ مَتَى بَعُدْتَ حَتَّى تَكُونَ الْآثَارُ هِيَ الَّتِي تُوصِلُ إِلَيْكَ عَمِيَتْ عَيْنٌ لَا تَزَالُ [تَرَاكَ‏] عَلَيْهَا رَقِيبا[2]

How can you prove Your existence by means of something that itself depends on You for its very existence? Does anything apart from You possess a manifestation that is not already in You, such that it could serve to reveal You? When were You ever hidden that we should need a proof to guide us to You? And when were You ever distant, that Your signs should bring us to You?

🌹 God is the One who makes messengership and walāya manifest. Knowledge of God through messengership and walāya is knowledge of God both directly and through the mediation of messengership and walāya. Needless to say, the mediator too is one through whom He Himself mediates.

🔅🌼 O God, make Your Messenger known to me.🌼🔅

🌹That is, without tawḥīd we cannot reach prophethood; we would be deaf. Prophethood means “God’s all-hearing permission.”

🌹“اللَّهُمَّ عَرِّفْنِي رَسُولَكَ” O God, You are the One who makes the sign a sign. Show me Your greatest sign: make me able to see, hear and speak through You. Awaken my world; establish my connection with Your indescribable Essence. Make me flourish; continually infuse my soul with Your mercy, blessings, knowledge, wisdom and grace.

🌹That is, release what is bound within me; restore my sight, my hearing and my speech. Enrich me, though I have nothing, and equip me with Your vast system of communication.

🌹My eye bears the mark of the Higher Eye; equip me with it. Complete my vision, so that I may see fully, and bring my hearing, smell, taste and understanding to perfection through Your Messenger. Make me a city of Muḥammad.

🌹God brings us to the word of His oneness and lights its lamp in our hearts. When we ask God to illumine our hearts and souls with His lamp, may He make us see with His sight, hear with His hearing, speak with His speech, and worship Him in servitude to Him. May He make us flourish through His Most Beautiful Names.

🌹O God, teach me to recognise the sight You have bestowed, so that I may benefit from it; and make me recognise my hearing and all my senses. Surely, if we are unaware of our wealth, we will live in poverty. The Messenger of God is God’s wealth, sent to enrich us.

🔅🌼 Tawḥīd is the gateway to messengership and walāya.🌼🔅

🌹Place Your remembrance in my heart; do not take it from me. That is, tawḥīd comes first: without tawḥīd, one cannot attain prophethood and walāya.

🌷🔆 عَنْ أَبِي عَبْدِ اللَّهِ ع قَالَ: يَقُولُ اللَّهُ عَزَّ وَ جَلَّ إِذَا عَصَانِي مَنْ‏ عَرَفَنِي‏ سَلَّطْتُ عَلَيْهِ مَنْ لَا يَعْرِفُنِي.[3]

🔆 God, Mighty and Majestic, said: “Whenever someone among My creation who knows Me disobeys Me, I set over that person someone from among My creation who does not know Me.”

🌷🔆إلَهِي وَ سَيِّدِي بِكَ عَرَفْتُكَ وَ بِكَ اهْتَدَيْتُ إِلَى سَبِيلِكَ وَ أَنْتَ دَلِيلٌ عَلَى مَعْرِفَتِكَ وَ لَوْ لَا أَنْتَ مَا عَرَفْتُ تَوْحِيدَكَ وَ لَا عَرَفْتُ وَ لَا اهْتَدَيْتُ إِلَى عِبَادَتِكَ فَلَكَ الْحَمْدُ عَلَى مَا هَدَيْتَ وَ عَلَّمْتَ وَ بَصَّرْتَ وَ فَهَّمْتَ وَ أَوْضَحْتَ مِنَ الصِّرَاطِ الْمُسْتَقِيم‏[4]

🔆My God and my Master, through You I have known You, through You I have been guided, and You Yourself have guided me to know You. Had it not been for You, I would not have known Your oneness or Your guidance, nor found the way. So all praise is Yours: You guided me, taught me, gave me sight and understanding, and made the straight path clear to me.

🌱 O مَنْ دَلَّ عَلَى ذَاتِهِ بِذَاتِه‏

🔅🌼 O God, make me a lover of giving thanks to You.🌼🔅

🌻رَبِّ أَوْزِعْني‏ أَنْ أَشْكُرَ نِعْمَتَكَ

🌻🔆al-Naml: 19   فَتَبَسَّمَ ضاحِكاً مِنْ قَوْلِها وَ قالَ رَبِّ أَوْزِعْني‏ أَنْ أَشْكُرَ نِعْمَتَكَ الَّتي‏ أَنْعَمْتَ عَلَيَّ وَ عَلى‏ والِدَيَّ وَ أَنْ أَعْمَلَ صالِحاً تَرْضاهُ وَ أَدْخِلْني‏ بِرَحْمَتِكَ في‏ عِبادِكَ الصَّالِحينَ

🔆Solomon smiled and laughed at her words, and said: “My Lord, inspire me to give thanks for the blessings You have bestowed upon me and my parents, with devotion and love; grant me the ability to do righteous deeds that please You, and, through Your mercy, admit me among Your righteous servants.”

🌻🔆Al-Aḥqāf: 15   وَ وَصَّيْنَا الْإِنْسانَ بِوالِدَيْهِ إِحْساناً حَمَلَتْهُ أُمُّهُ كُرْهاً وَ وَضَعَتْهُ كُرْهاً وَ حَمْلُهُ وَ فِصالُهُ ثَلاثُونَ شَهْراً حَتَّى إِذا بَلَغَ أَشُدَّهُ وَ بَلَغَ أَرْبَعينَ سَنَةً قالَ رَبِّ أَوْزِعْني‏ أَنْ أَشْكُرَ نِعْمَتَكَ الَّتي‏ أَنْعَمْتَ عَلَيَّ وَ عَلى‏ والِدَيَّ وَ أَنْ أَعْمَلَ صالِحاً تَرْضاهُ وَ أَصْلِحْ لي‏ في‏ ذُرِّيَّتي‏ إِنِّي تُبْتُ إِلَيْكَ وَ إِنِّي مِنَ الْمُسْلِمينَ

🔆We have enjoined upon the human being kindness to his parents. His mother carried him through hardship and gave birth to him through hardship. His gestation and weaning last thirty months. When he reaches full strength and attains the age of forty, he says, “My Lord, grant me the grace to give thanks—wholeheartedly and with love—for the blessings You have bestowed upon me and my parents, and to do what is right and pleasing to You. Make my children righteous. I turn back to You in repentance, and I am among those who submit.”

🌹«أوزعنی»: O God, make me yearn passionately to give You thanks; enable me to thank You; inspire me to give You thanks; welcome my gratitude; make me ardently devoted to thanking You.

🌹If God, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise, does not inspire us with the identity and the outward and inward realities of His Messenger and His appointed Guide, we will have no understanding of them at all.

🌹Unless God Most High Himself reads His own Book to us, we will not grasp His message and words. Unless He guides us to His signs, we will have no understanding of them.

🔅🌼He is the architect of the path and the one who makes God’s signs manifest.🌼🔅

🌹Prophethood and divinely appointed guidance were a new means of knowing God.

🌹God Most High makes the path so that He may guide us along it. His making a path is a new act of creation, a new expression of His will. A path is a kind of distance; to make a path is to create a kind of distance! Distance is a classroom for learning to understand nearness to God.

🌹Through prophethood, messengership and divinely appointed guidance, God brought forth something unprecedented. Messengership and guidance were a new creation of God: “Every day He is upon some matter”—a new matter of His.

🌹Through Muhammad, Ali and the descendants of Ali, God brought forth something new. Prophethood and Imamate were a new structure for knowing God. Through this new means of knowing Him, God acquaints us with His new art; He brought into being a new realm, beyond the former one. Will we graduate from this new classroom?

🌹“اللَّهُمَّ عَرِّفْنِي حُجَّتَكَ” means: O God, make known to me Your greatest signs; make known to me the mighty paths that lead to You, Your vessels, and Your Most Beautiful Names. Make Your signs known to me, so that through them I may turn toward You, deepen my connection with You, and draw ever nearer to You.

🔅🌼The image of messengership and divinely appointed guidance is within our souls.🌼🔅

🌹Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the family of Muhammad (peace be upon them) constitute a distinctive system of connection and knowledge. An image of it has been placed within our souls; it must awaken, and our innate nature must be opened.

🌹We connect with God through His signs and creations; all the divine signs are channels of communication with Him.

🔅🌼If I do not know God’s means of imparting knowledge, I remain ignorant.🌼🔅

🌹If I do not know my eyes, I will be blind; if I do not know the light, I will see nothing, even with sight. So I must know my eyes and become familiar with the light. Seeing is a sign that I can interpret the light, though its interpretation has many degrees.

🌹If I do not know God, I am no servant of His; if I do not know God’s Messenger and Proof, I will have no faculty of connection. In other words, I will not come to know God through the means of messengership and divinely appointed guidance.

🌹Either my inner being must be equipped with prophethood and divinely appointed guidance, or I must connect to them from without, so that the spark and system of prophethood and guidance within our souls may come alive.

🌹God, who has no need of being known, made knowing Him a particular state of feeling for worshipping and serving Him. Even worship itself is a particular kind of connection. God has no need to be introduced or served; servitude and knowledge are special instruments on the path of renewing creation, a distinctive innovation in creation.

🌹In the realm of knowledge, God’s distinctive innovations continue without end.

🔅🌼The distinctive flavours of knowing God🌼🔅

🌹God Most High has seasoned and given flavour to knowledge of Him through messengership and wilayah: knowledge of God infused with the taste of salt and honey, and with the incomparable condiments of messengership and wilayah.

🌹Each of the verses, too, is a distinctive seasoning of knowledge of God.

🌷🔆

قَالَ أَمِيرُ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ ع فِي خُطْبَتِهِ‏ أَنَا الْهَادِي وَ أَنَا الْمُهْتَدِي وَ أَنَا أَبُو الْيَتَامَى وَ الْمَسَاكِينِ وَ زَوْجُ الْأَرَامِلِ وَ أَنَا مَلْجَأُ كُلِ‏ ضَعِيفٍ وَ مَأْمَنُ كُلِّ خَائِفٍ وَ أَنَا قَائِدُ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ إِلَى الْجَنَّةِ وَ أَنَا حَبْلُ اللَّهِ الْمَتِينُ وَ أَنَا عُرْوَةُ اللَّهِ الْوُثْقَى وَ كَلِمَةُ التَّقْوَى وَ أَنَا عَيْنُ اللَّهِ وَ لِسَانُهُ الصَّادِقُ وَ يَدُهُ وَ أَنَا جَنْبُ اللَّهِ الَّذِي يَقُولُ‏ أَنْ تَقُولَ نَفْسٌ يا حَسْرَتى‏ عَلى‏ ما فَرَّطْتُ فِي جَنْبِ اللَّهِ‏  وَ أَنَا يَدُ اللَّهِ الْمَبْسُوطَةُ عَلَى عِبَادِهِ بِالرَّحْمَةِ وَ الْمَغْفِرَةِ وَ أَنَا بَابُ حِطَّةٍ مَنْ‏ عَرَفَنِي‏ وَ عَرَفَ حَقِّي فَقَدْ عَرَفَ رَبَّهُ لِأَنِّي وَصِيُّ نَبِيِّهِ فِي أَرْضِهِ وَ حُجَّتُهُ عَلَى خَلْقِهِ لَا يُنْكِرُ هَذَا إِلَّا رَادٌّ عَلَى اللَّهِ وَ رَسُولِهِ.[5]

🔆Imam Ali (AS): I am the guide; I am the one rightly guided. I am the father of orphans and the poor, the guardian of widows, the support and refuge of every helpless person, and the sanctuary of everyone overcome by fear. I am the guide of the believers to Paradise, God’s firmest cord, God’s strong bond and sure support, and the word of piety. I am the eye of God, His truthful tongue, and the outstretched hand of Allah among His creatures.
🌹The world of messengership and wilayah is a world of knowledge; it is a new mode of knowing God. Modes of existence grounded in knowledge, both above and below it, may also be conceived.

🌹Knowledge of God through the salt, honey and flavour of messengership and wilayah is a new experience in the realm of knowing God.

🔅🌼The veil is that new register of knowledge of God.🌼🔅

🌹The divine veil is a particular world of knowledge of God: a new experience of meeting God through worship and the divine veil.

🌷🔆

عَنْ بُرَيْدٍ الْعِجْلِيِّ قَالَ سَمِعْتُ أَبَا جَعْفَرٍ ع يَقُولُ‏ بِنَا عُبِدَ اللَّهُ وَ بِنَا عُرِفَ اللَّهُ وَ بِنَا وُحِّدَ اللَّهُ تَبَارَكَ وَ تَعَالَى وَ مُحَمَّدٌ حِجَابُ‏ اللَّهِ‏ تَبَارَكَ وَ تَعَالَى‏ [6]

🔆Imam Baqir (AS) said: Through us, God is worshipped; through us, God is known; and through us, people came to know the oneness of God, the Blessed and Exalted. Muhammad is the veil of God, the Blessed and Exalted.
🔅🌼The Constellation of Knowledge of God🌼🔅

🌹Direct and unmediated knowledge of God is the first form of knowing God. Knowing God through messengership and knowing God through wilayah are other forms and innovations in the knowledge of God: forms of mediated knowledge through messengership and wilayah, each offering a new flavour of knowledge of God.

🌹Worship without means is the soul of knowledge of God, while worship through means—that is, worship enriched with seasoning—is in reality the sharing of the joy of worship and servitude.

🌹The highest pleasure is the pleasure of servitude. Now we wish to draw this pleasure from the arts of messengership and wilayah.

🌹The magnificent apparatus of messengership and wilayah exists for a special relationship with the eternal Beloved and the One who is worshipped.

🌹The arts of messengership and wilayah mean knowledge, worship and delight flavoured with the Muhammadan, Alid, Hasanian, Husayni and other such tastes—and with the Mahdavi taste.

🔅🌼The divine veil is the covering of knowledge of God.🌼🔅

🌹The divine veil is the particular art of knowing God.

🌹The divine veil means divine tenderness and heavenly adornment, adorned in the Muhammadan, Alid and other such forms.

🌹“Ali” is the greatest and loftiest divine veil: an adornment of singular greatness and elevation, an epistemic adornment expressed in the language of beauty.

🌹Through adornment, God calls His servants towards Himself and draws them to Him.

🌹The veil, and the world of the veil, mean a world of distinctive relationships and distinctive knowledge.

🌷🔆عَنْ أَمِيرِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ ع أَنَّهُ قَالَ: يَا طَارِقُ الْإِمَامُ كَلِمَةُ اللَّهِ وَ حُجَّةُ اللَّهِ وَ وَجْهُ اللَّهِ وَ نُورُ اللَّهِ وَ حِجَابُ‏ اللَّهِ‏ وَ آيَةُ اللَّهِ يَخْتَارُهُ اللَّهُ وَ يَجْعَلُ فِيهِ مَا يَشَاءُ وَ يُوجِبُ لَهُ بِذَلِكَ الطَّاعَةَ وَ الْوَلَايَةَ عَلَى جَمِيعِ خَلْقِهِ فَهُوَ وَلِيُّهُ فِي سَمَاوَاتِهِ وَ أَرْضِهِ  أَخَذَ لَهُ بِذَلِكَ الْعَهْدَ عَلَى جَمِيعِ عِبَادِهِ فَمَنْ تَقَدَّمَ عَلَيْهِ كَفَرَ بِاللَّهِ مِنْ فَوْقِ عَرْشِهِ فَهُوَ يَفْعَلُ مَا يَشَاءُ وَ إِذَا شَاءَ اللَّهُ شَاءَ [7]

The Commander of the Faithful, peace and blessings be upon him, said to Tariq ibn Shihab:

O Tariq! The Imam is the Word of God, the Proof of God, God’s beauty and countenance, God’s light, God’s veil, and God’s sign. God chooses him and places within him whatever of Himself He wills. For this reason, He establishes and makes incumbent upon all His creatures the duty to obey him and acknowledge his authority, as well as his right to rule over them. He is therefore the guardian of the heavens and the earth, and so God has taken a covenant from all His servants concerning him.

Whoever claims precedence over him has disbelieved in God, whose dominion is above the Throne. The Imam does whatever he wills—but his will is, of course, only when God wills.

🌷🔆Andجَلَّ مَقَامُ آلِ مُحَمَّدٍ ص عَنْ وَصْفِ الْوَاصِفِينَ وَ نَعْتِ النَّاعِتِينَ وَ أَنْ يُقَاسَ بِهِمْ أَحَدٌ مِنَ الْعَالَمِينَ كَيْفَ وَ هُمُ الْكَلِمَةُ الْعَلْيَاءُ وَ التَّسْمِيَةُ الْبَيْضَاءُ وَ الْوَحْدَانِيَّةُ الْكُبْرَى الَّتِي أَعْرَضَ عَنْهَا مَنْ أَدْبَرَ وَ تَوَلَّى وَ حِجَابُ اللَّهِ الْأَعْظَمُ الْأَعْلَى‏[8]

🌷🔆The station of the Family of Muhammad is beyond the praise of those who praise them and the descriptions of those who describe them; no one can be compared with them. How could they be compared with anyone, when they are the exalted Word, the radiant Name, and the supreme Oneness? Whoever turns away from them or holds aloof from them has strayed from tawhid. They are the Greatest Veil of God.

🌷🔆 السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكَ يَا سَبِيلَ اللَّهِ الَّذِي مَنْ سَلَكَ غَيْرَهُ هَلَكَ السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكَ يَا حِجَابَ‏ اللَّهِ‏ الْأَزَلِيِّ الْقَدِيمِ السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكَ يَا ابْنَ شَجَرَةِ طُوبَى وَ سِدْرَةِ الْمُنْتَهَى السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكَ يَا نُورَ اللَّهِ الَّذِي لَا يُطْفَى‏[9]

🔅🌼Ali: The Veil of Divine Love🌼🔅

🌷🔆 فَإِنَّ الْحِجَابَ‏ الَّذِي بَيْنَ الْعَبْدِ وَ بَيْنَ اللَّهِ تَعَالَى حُبُ‏ عَلِيِ‏ بْنِ أَبِي طَالِبٍ ع[10]

🌷🔆 The veil between the servant and God is love for Ali ibn Abi Talib.

🌹Love for Ali is the gateway to an encounter of love with the incomparable Beloved; it is practice and training in holy love.

🌹The Eternal Beloved concealed His nearness in love for Ali, and His incomparable love in love for Ali. Ali became the setting for God’s love; He adorned Ali with His own love.

🌹Ali is a divine gift and offering. When God wishes to tell His servant, “I love you,” He places love for Ali in the servant’s heart.

🌹Love for Ali is a merciful kiss upon the heart of God’s devoted servant.

🌹Ali is the boundary and gateway of divine love.

🌹Whoever falls in love with Ali has God’s love for them affirmed in their heart.

🌹Love for Ali is the very love that God Himself has placed in the hearts of His believers. Love for Ali is the bestowal of divine love. Ali is that love of God.

🌹Ali is the proving ground of divine love.

🌻🔆Al-Ḥujurāt: 7   وَ اعْلَمُوا أَنَّ فيكُمْ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ لَوْ يُطيعُكُمْ في‏ كَثيرٍ مِنَ الْأَمْرِ لَعَنِتُّمْ وَ لكِنَّ اللَّهَ حَبَّبَ إِلَيْكُمُ الْإيمانَ وَ زَيَّنَهُ في‏ قُلُوبِكُمْ وَ كَرَّهَ إِلَيْكُمُ الْكُفْرَ وَ الْفُسُوقَ وَ الْعِصْيانَ أُولئِكَ هُمُ الرَّاشِدُونَ

🔆And know that the Messenger of God is among you. If he were to obey you in many matters, you would suffer hardship. But God has made faith dear to you and adorned your hearts with it, and has made disbelief, defiance, and sin hateful to you. Such people are rightly guided!

🔅🌼ʿAlī, peace be upon him, is God’s treasurer🌼🔅

🌹To lose ʿAlī is to lose everything—or rather, more than everything. For all things are by the life of our master ʿAlī. God is the treasury of all things; God is the Clear Book and the Clear Imam. The loss of ʿAlī is manifest ruin.

🌻🔆Yā Sīn: 12   إِنَّا نَحْنُ نُحْيِ الْمَوْتى‏ وَ نَكْتُبُ ما قَدَّمُوا وَ آثارَهُمْ وَ كُلَّ شَيْ‏ءٍ أَحْصَيْناهُ في‏ إِمامٍ مُبينٍ

🔆Surely We give life to the dead, and record what they have sent ahead and all the traces they have left behind; We have enumerated everything in the “Clear Imam”!

🌹Does “enumerated” mean that the knowledge of everything resides in the soul of our master?

🌹The enumeration of every thing—its information? Its secrets? Its blueprint? The software of existence? A divine computer?

🌹Whoever is deprived of ʿAlī becomes the most wretched of all, from the first to the last.

🌹To lose ʿAlī is to lose the light—or something far greater.

🌹What has God done with ʿAlī?

🔅🌼Three special classes in knowing God🌼🔅

🌹The first class is knowing God with the particular degree and flavour of directness; the second, knowing God with the degree and flavour of prophethood; and the third, knowing God with the degree and flavour of allegiance to the Imams.

🌹Each stage of knowledge builds on the previous one, provided that the preceding stage and class have been attained.

🌹God expands human knowledge of Himself and makes it grow.

🌹God has no need to be introduced or worshipped. No connection is needed in order to be connected to God, for before anything else, one is already in a connection beyond all connections with one’s Beloved.

🌹Worship is a special form of the Lord’s tenderness and creativity; it belongs to His blessed name, “the One worshipped.”

🌹Worship is a special means on the path to the renewal of creation.

🌹God is constantly renewing the flavour and seasoning of creation.

🌹Every verse offers a unique and distinctive seasoning on the path to knowing God.

🌹ʿAlī, too, is renewed at every moment. Are we connected to the ʿAlī of the past or the ʿAlī of the present? Which moment of creation are we looking toward?

🌹From what distance do we gaze upon the exalted celestial realm of ʿAlī?

🔅🌼The opening of the Muhammadan heavens🌼🔅

Al-Anbiyāʾ: 30 أَ وَ لَمْ يَرَ الَّذينَ كَفَرُوا أَنَّ السَّماواتِ وَ الْأَرْضَ كانَتا رَتْقاً فَفَتَقْناهُما وَ جَعَلْنا مِنَ الْماءِ كُلَّ شَيْ‏ءٍ حَيٍّ أَ فَلا يُؤْمِنُونَ

Have the disbelievers not seen that the heavens and the earth were joined together, and that We separated them, and made every living thing from water? Will they not believe?

🌼ʿAlī Sāʿī (ʿAbdullāh Mishkāt) 110.141 (903)🌼

[1] Al-Kāfī (Islamic edition), vol. 1, p. 337Kulaynī, Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq, Islamic Books Publishing House, Tehran, fourth edition, 1407 AH.

[2] Iqbal al-A‘mal (old edition), vol. 1, p. 348 Ibn Tawus, Ali ibn Musa, Dar al-Kutub al-Islamiyya, Tehran, second edition, 1409 AH.

[3] Al-Kafi (Islamic edition), vol. 2, p. 276 Kulayni, Muhammad ibn Ya‘qub ibn Ishaq, Dar al-Kutub al-Islamiyya, Tehran, fourth edition, 1407 AH.

[4] Iqbal al-A‘mal (old edition), vol. 1, p. 149

[5] Al-Tawhid (by al-Saduq), p. 164 Ibn Babawayh, Muhammad ibn Ali, Society of Seminary Teachers, Iran, Qom, first edition, 1398 AH.

[6] Al-Kafi (Islamic edition), vol. 1, p. 145 Kulayni, Muhammad ibn Ya‘qub ibn Ishaq, Dar al-Kutub al-Islamiyya, Tehran, fourth edition, 1407 AH.

[7] Bihar al-Anwar (Beirut edition), vol. 25, p. 169. Majlisi, Muhammad Baqir ibn Muhammad Taqi, Dar Ihya al-Turath al-Arabi, Beirut, second edition, 1403 AH.

[8] Bihar al-Anwar (Beirut edition), vol. 25, p. 171 Majlisi, Muhammad Baqir ibn Muhammad Taqi, Dar Ihya al-Turath al-Arabi, Beirut, second edition, 1403 AH.

[9] Bihar al-Anwar (Beirut edition), vol. 99, p. 98 Majlisi, Muhammad Baqir ibn Muhammad Taqi, Dar Ihya al-Turath al-Arabi, Beirut, second edition, 1403 AH.

[10] A‘lam al-Din fi Sifat al-Mu’minin, p. 136 Daylami, Hasan ibn Muhammad, Ahl al-Bayt Foundation, Qom, first edition, 1408 AH.