Sidi Abu-l-Hassan ash-Shadholi and the meaning of Love

Admin عدد الرسائل : 310 تاريخ التسجيل : 02/09/2008

Our Shaykh, Abu-l-Hassan ash-Shadholi was asked about love.
He said:
“Love is something granted by Allah to the heart of His slave which distracts him from everything else other than Him. To the point that you see your lower self inclining to Him, the intellect protecting itself by spiritual knowledge of Him, the spirit rapt in his Presence, the inner secret soul overwhelmed in contemplation of Him. The slave asks for more, and more is given, and he enters into the sweetest of delights of spiritual communion with Him. He is clad in raiment that befits the approach to Him upon the carpet of proximity and he comes into contact with virgin reality and revealed science. For that reason it is said that the Awliya are the brides of Allah.”
The one who raised the question said to the Shaykh, “Now that I have come to know of love tell me, what is the drink (Sharab) of love, what is the cup (Ka’s) of love, who is the cupbearer (Saqi), what is the tasting (Dhawq), what is the drinking (Shurb), what is repletion (Riy), what is intoxication (Sukr), and what is sobriety (Sahw) ?”
He replied may Allah sanctify his secret, “The drink is the light radiating from the beauty of the Beloved. The cup is the distillation of the subtle essence of the Mercy (Lutf) which brings that light into contact with the lips of the heart. The Cupbearer is He who befriends the greatest of the elect and the righteous ones from among His slaves. He is Allah, the One who knows the capacities and affairs of His Friends. If to anyone there is disclosed that beauty if he enjoys it for one breath or two, and then the veil is dropped over it, he is the yearning ‘taster’. If he continues for an hour or more he is the ‘drinker’. If the experience becomes continuous and the drink lasts until his veins and all his members become filled with the treasured lights of Allah then that is repletion. Often one becomes unconscious of sense and mental perceptions so that he knows neither what is said nor what he said, that is intoxication. Sometimes the cups circulate among them, states differ, they are turned back to Remembrance (Dhikr) mystical states (Ahwal) and the statutory injunctions (Furud). They are not veiled from the physical attributes in spite of their having drunk as much as they could. That is the time of their sobriety, of the broadening of their mental vision and of the increase of their works. So by the stars of knowledge and the moon of unity they are guided across the night and by the sun of spiritual knowledge they obtain light. ‘These are the party of Allah ... and lo, is it not the partisans of Allah who are the victorious?’” [58:22]

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