Eating on Behalf

Abu Muhammad’s spiritual state was usually one of Expansion, while Abu Abdullah’s companions were in a state of Contraction. Therefore, as he was bidding them farewell, the Shaykh’s companions said, O Abu Muhammad, if only your Expansion were a little less! He asked them what they meant by Expansion and they said, Mercy. Then he asked them what they meant by Contraction and they said, Punishment. Then he said, O God, remove me not from Your mercy to Your Punishment. At this they all felt very ashamed.

Ibn al-Arabi then also states: One night God gave me a vision of the spiritual stations and took me through them till I came to the station of Reliance where I saw our Shaykh Abdullah al-Mawruri. He was at the center of the station while the station itself revolved around him like the wheel round its hub, he being motionless. Later I wrote to him about the vision. I used to spend much time with him and I gained much benefit from him.

Then in al-Durrah al-Fakhirah the Shaykh adds some more details and narrations about al-Mawruri: He was unique in his time for his great reliance upon God and his veracity, he was a companion to Abu Madyan, Ibn Saidabun, Abdul-Razzaq al-Mughawir, al-Kamal and Abu Abdullah Ibn Hasan.

He kept company with me for a time. When I left him he was still living in his country.

He had a daughter under one year of age. So influenced was she by his spiritual state that when the brethren had attended for the Invocation and had formed a large circle, she would jump down from her mother’s lap and stand in the middle of the circle on her legs. At such times ecstasy would overcome her. Even at so tender an age she manifested things which made it apparent that God had placed a light in her heart by which she had spiritual knowledge. She died before she was weaned.

One night I was with him in the house of Abu Abdullah Muhammad al-Khayyat, whom I have already mentioned! There was present with us a certain Muhammad al-Baskari, the purity of whose doctrines we suspected since he adhered to the doctrine’s of the ancients. There were also with us that night Ahmad al-Lawshi, Muhammad Ibn Abu al-Fadl, Ahmad al-Hariri Ibn al-Assad and Ibn al-Mahabbah, all of them leaders in the Way. We were all sitting facing the Qiblah and everyone had his head between his knees, practicing Invocation or contemplation. Suddenly a sort of sleep overcame me and I saw myself and the whole company in a very dark room so that ... if a man were to stretch forth his hand he would scarcely be able to see it. From each of us there emanated a light from his essence to illuminate the darkness immediately around him. As we sat in the light of our own essence, a person came in to us through the door of that dark room and greeted us, saying, I am the apostle of the truth to you. Then we asked him what he had to say of the man whose doctrines we suspected. He said, He is a believer in the Unity of God. This was indeed true, but it was not this but his creed we suspected. Then I said, O Apostle, deliver the message you have been sent with. He said, Know that good is in existence and evil in non-existence. God, in His generosity, has created man and has made him unique in His creation, created according to His Names and Attributes; but man has lost sight of this by regarding his own (individual) essence, seeing himself by himself and the number returns to its origin. He is He and not you. Then I returned to my senses from this vision and told the company what I had seen. They were pleased by it but not carried away. Then we all returned to our former state. I then applied myself to solving the meaning of what I had seen and composed some verses on the subject, all of which I did silently within myself. Then al-Mawruri came to himself and called to me, but I did not answer. Then he said, Answer me, for you are awake and are working out some verses on the Unity of God Most High. At this I raised my head and said to him, How did you know this? He answered, Your eye is open and you are making fast the hunters net. I said, The setting in order of strewn beats is the same as the setting in order of scattered words, which is poetry; its coming into being is the net of the hunter. Only that which has life (spirit) is caught in the net, and speech and poetry have no life except they are of God. As for his faith in the divine Unity, I knew it was innate in him, may God be pleased with him.