2.7.2.4 - Meeting with Angels

Additionally, Shaykh Muhyiddin also mentioned that Fatima al-Qurtubiya was among some men and women who sat with and benefited from angels. The angels are pure lights with no curiosity, but they have the pure divine science which is not confused, so that they remain in ever-new knowledge of God always with breaths. But as with seeing the jinn and talking to them, so may some shaykhs imagine that they are sitting with angels while they are imagining some corrupt images, the Shaykh says that the one who claimed to sit in public and did not take advantage of himself in the knowledge of his Lord is not the correct state, but is the corrupt imagination. The Shaykh then adds that the most sincere of those who saw them in their form of women is Fatima Bint Ibn Muthanna in Seville, and also Shams the mother of poor in Marshanah, whom we shall mention next section, and Umm al-Zahra in Seville also, and Kalbahar in Mecca, also called Lady Ghazala. Among the men he mentions Abu al-Abbas Ibn al-Mundhir from Seville, Abu al-Hajjaj al-Shuburubli, and Yusuf Ibn Sakhr in Cordoba [Futuhat: I.274, I.206], and we shall mention some of them in section [ref:othershaykhs below.

2.7.2.4 - The Story of the Muezzin

In al-Durrah al-Fakhirah, the Shaykh says: Once, on the night of the Festival, Abu Amir, the muezzin: the one calling for prayers, struck her with his whip in the mosque. She gave him a look and left the place feeling very angry with him. In the morning she heard him calling to prayer and said, O my Lord, do not rebuke me that I was affected by one who calls Your Name in the darkness of the night while other men sleep, for it is my Beloved who is mentioned on his lips. O God, do not censure him because of my feeling against him.

The next morning the jurists of the locality went, after the Festival prayer, to convey their respects to the Sultan. This muezzin, full of worldly aspiration, went in with them. When the Sultan inquired who the fellow might be, he was told that it was only the muezzin. Then the Sultan asked who had allowed him to come in with the jurists and ordered him to be thrown out, which he was. However, after someone had pleaded with the Sultan for him he was let off, although the Sultan had intended to punish him. Fatimah heard about this incident and said, I know about it, and if I had not prayed for leniency for him he would have been executed. Her spiritual influence was very great indeed. after this she died.