May
Allah Be Well Pleased With Him
"I have planted love in my heart
and shall not be distracted until Judgment Day.
You have wounded my heart when You came near me.
My desire grows, my love is bursting.
He has poured me a sip to drink.
He has quickened my heart with the cup of love
which he has filled at the ocean of friendship."
Attributed
to Bayazid.
His
Life
Bayazid's grandfather was a Zoroastrian from Persia. Bayazid made
a detailed study of the statutes of Islamic law (sharia) and practiced
a strict regimen of self-denial (zuhd). All his life he was assiduous
in the practice of his religious obligations and in observing voluntary
worship.
He
urged his students (murids) to put their affairs in the hands of
Allah and he encouraged them to accept sincerely the pure doctrine
of tawhid (the Oneness of God). This doctrine consisted of five
essentials: to keep the obligations according to the Qur'an and
Sunnah, to always speak the truth, to keep the heart free from hatred,
to avoid forbidden food and to shun innovations (bida).
His
Sayings
One of his sayings was, "I have come to know Allah through
Allah, and I have come to know what is other than Allah with the
light of Allah." He said, "Allah has granted his servants
favors for the purpose of bringing them closer to Him. Instead they
are fascinated with the favors and are drifting farther from Him."
And he said, praying to Allah, "O Allah, You have created this
creation without their knowledge and You have placed on them a trust
without their will. If You don't help them who will help them?"
Bayazid
said the ultimate goal of the Sufi is to experience the vision of
Allah in the Hereafter. To that effect he said, "There are
special servants of Allah who, if Allah veiled Himself from their
sight in Paradise, would implore Him to take them out of Paradise
just as the inhabitants of the Fire implore Him to release them
from Hell."
He
said about Allah's love for His servant, "If Allah loves His
servant He will grant three attributes that are the proofs of His
Love: generosity like the generosity of the ocean, and favor like
the favor of the Sun in its giving of light, and modesty like the
modesty of the Earth. The true lover never considers any affliction
too great and never decreases his worship because of his pure faith."
A
man asked Bayazid, "Show me a deed by which I will approach
my Lord." He said, "Love the friends of Allah in order
that they will love you. Love his saints until they love you. Because
Allah looks at the hearts of His saints and He will see your name
engraved in the heart of His saints and He will forgive you."
For this reason, the Naqshbandi followers have been elevated by
their love for their shaikhs. This love lifts them to a station
of continuous pleasure and continuous presence in the heart of their
beloved.
Many
Muslim scholars in his time, and many after his time, said that
Bayazid al-Bistami was the first one to spread the reality of Annihilation
(fana'). Even that strictest of scholars, Ibn Taymiyya, who came
in the 7th Century A.H., admired Bayazid for this and considered
him to be one of his masters. Ibn Taymiyya said about him, "There
are two categories of fana': one is for the perfect Prophets and
saints, and one is for seekers from among the saints and pious people
(saliheen). Bayazid al-Bistami is from the first category of those
who experience fana', which means the complete renunciation of anything
other than God. He accepts none except God. He worships none except
Him, and he asks from none except Him." He continues, quoting
Bayazid saying, "I want not to want except what He wants."
It
was reported about Bayazid that he said, "I divorced the lower
world thrice in order that I could not return to it and I moved
to my Lord alone, without anyone, and I called on Him alone for
help by saying, O Allah, O Allah, no one remains for me except You.
At that time I came to know the sincerity of my supplication in
my heart and the reality of the helplessness of my ego. Immediately
my heart perceived the acceptance of that supplication. This opened
to me a vision that I was no longer in existence and I vanished
completely from myself into His self. And He brought up all that
I had divorced before in front of me, and dressed me with light
and with His attributes."
Bayazid
said, "Praise to me, for My greatest Glory!" And he continued
saying, "I set forth on an ocean when the [earlier] prophets
were still by the shore." And he said, "O My Lord, Your
obedience to me is greater than my obedience to you." This
means, O God, You are granting my request and I have yet to obey
you.
He
said, "I made four mistakes in my preliminary steps in this
way: I thought that I remember Him and I know Him and I love Him
and I seek Him, but when I reached Him I saw that His remembering
of me preceded my remembrance of Him, and His knowledge about me
preceded my knowledge of Him and His love towards me was more ancient
than my love towards Him, and He sought me in order that I would
begin to seek Him."
Adh-Dhahabi
quoted him in many great matters, among which was "Praise to
Me, for My greatest Glory!" and "There is nothing in this
robe I am wearing except Allah." Adh-Dhahabi's teacher Ibn
Taymiyya explained, "He didn't see himself as existing any
longer, but only saw the existence of Allah, due to his self-denial."
Adh-Dhahabi
further relates, "He said, O Allah, what is your Fire, it is
nothing. Let me be the one person to go into your Fire and everyone
else will be saved. And what is your Paradise? It is a toy for children.
And who are those unbelievers who you want to torture? They are
your servants. Forgive them."
Ibn
Hajar said, in reference to Bayazid's famous utterances, "Allah
knows the secret and Allah knows the heart. Whatever Bayazid spoke
from the Knowledge of Realities the people of his time did not understand.
They condemned him and exiled him seven times from his city. Every
time he was exiled, terrible afflictions would strike the city until
the people would call him back, pledge allegiance to him, and accept
him as a real saint."
Attar
and Arusi relate that Bayazid said, when he was exiled from his
city, "O Blessed city, whose refuse is Bayazid!"
One
time Bayazid said, "Allah the Most Just called me into His
Presence and said to me, O Bayazid how did you arrive in My Presence?
I replied, through zuhd, by renouncing the world. He said, the value
of the lower world is like the wing of a mosquito. What kind of
renunciation have you come with? I said, O Allah, forgive me. Then
I said, O Allah, I came to you through tawakkul, by dependence on
you. Then He said, Did I ever betray the trust which I promised
you? I said, O Allah forgive me. Then I said, O Allah, I came to
you through You. At that time Allah said, Now We accept you."
He
said, "I stood with the pious and I didn't find any progress
with them. I stood with the warriors in the cause and I didn't find
a single step of progress with them. I stood with those who pray
excessively and those who fast excessively and I didn't make a footstep
of progress. Then I said, O Allah, what is the way to you? And Allah
said, Leave yourself and come."
Ibrahim
Khawwas said, "The way that Allah showed to him, with the most
delicate word and the simplest explanation, was to 'leave your self-interest
in the two worlds, the dunya and the Hereafter, leave everything
other than Me behind.' That is the best and easiest way to come
to Allah Almighty and Exalted, the most perfect and highest state
of affirming Oneness, not to accept anything or anyone except Allah
the Most High."
One
of the followers of Dhul Nun al-Misri was following Bayazid. Bayazid
asked him, "Who do you want?" He replied, "I want
Bayazid." He said, "O my son, Bayazid is wanting Bayazid
for forty years and is still not finding him." That murid of
Dhul Nun then went to him and narrated this incident to him. On
hearing it Dhul Nun fainted. He explained later saying, "My
master Bayazid has lost himself in Allah's love. That causes him
to try to find himself again."
They
asked him, "Teach us about how you reached true Reality."
He said, "By training myself, by seclusion." They said,
"How?" He said, "I called my self to accept Allah
Almighty and Exalted, and it resisted. I took an oath that I would
not drink water and I would not taste sleep until I brought my self
under my control."
He
also said, "O Allah! it is not strange that I love You because
I am a weak servant, but it is strange that You love me when You
are the King of Kings."
He
said, "For thirty years, when I wanted to remember Allah and
do dhikr I used to wash my tongue and my mouth for His glorification."
He
said, "As long as the servant thinks that there is among the
Muslims someone lower than himself, that servant still has pride."
They
asked him, "Describe your day and describe your night."
He said, "I don't have a day and I don't have a night, because
day and night are for those who have characteristics of creation.
I have shed my self the way the snake sheds its skin."
Of
Sufism Bayazid said: "It to give up rest and to accept suffering."
Of
the obligation to follow a guide, he said: "Who does not have
a Shaykh, his Shaykh is Satan."
Of
seeking God he said, "Hunger is a rain cloud. If a servant
becomes hungry, Allah will shower his heart with wisdom."
Of
his intercession he said, "If Allah will give me permission
to intercede for all the people of my time I will not be proud,
because I am only interceding for a piece of clay," and "If
Allah gave me permission for intercession, first I would intercede
for those who harmed me and those who denied me."
To
a young man who wanted a piece of his old cloak for baraka (blessing),
Bayazid said: "Should you take all Bayazid's skin and wear
it as yours, it would avail you nothing unless you followed his
example."
They
said to him, "The key for Paradise is LA ILAHA ILLALLAH (witnessing
that there is no god except Allah)." He said, "It is true,
but a key is for opening a lock; and the key of such witnessing
can only operate under the following conditions:
1)
a tongue which doesn't lie nor backbite
2) a heart without betrayal
3) a stomach without haram or doubtful provision
4) deeds without desire or innovation."
He
said, "The ego or self always looks at the world and the ruh
(spirit) always looks at the next life and marifat (spiritual knowledge)
always looks at Allah Almighty and Exalted. He whose self defeats
him is from those who are destroyed, and he whose spirit is victorious
over his self, he is of the pious, and he whose spiritual knowledge
overcomes his self, he is of the God-conscious."
Ad-Dailami
said, "One time I asked Abdur Rahman bin Yahya about the state
of trust in Allah (tawakkul). He said, "If you put your hand
in the mouth of a lion, don't be afraid of other than Allah."
I went in my heart to visit and ask Bayazid about this matter. I
knocked and I heard from inside, "Wasn't what Abdur Rahman
said to you enough? You came only to ask, and not with the intention
of visiting me." I understood and I came again another time
one year later, knocking at his door. This time he answered, "Welcome
my son, this time you came to me as a visitor and not as a questioner."
They
asked him "When does a man become a man?" He said, "When
he knows the mistakes of his self and he busies himself in correcting
them."
He
said, "I was twelve years the blacksmith of my self, and five
years the polisher of the mirror of my heart, and for one year I
was looking in that mirror and I saw on my belly the girdle of unbelief.
I tried hard to cut it and I spent twelve years in that effort.
Then I looked in that mirror and I saw inside my body that girdle.
I spent five years cutting it. Then I spent one year looking at
what I had done. And Allah opened for me the vision of all creations.
And I saw all of them dead. And I prayed four takbirs of janaza
(funeral prayer) over them."
He
said one time: "If the Throne and what is around it and what
is in it were placed in the corner of the heart of a Knower, they
would be lost completely inside it."
Of
Bayazid's state, al-'Abbas ibn Hamza related the following: "I
prayed behind Bayazid the Dhuhr prayer, and when he raised his hands
to say 'Allahu Akbar' he was unable to pronounce the words, fearing
from Allah's Holy Name, and his entire body was trembling and the
sound of bones breaking came from him; I was seized by fear."
Munawi
relates that one day, Bayazid attended the class of a faqih (jurisprudent)
who was explaining the laws of inheritance: "When a man dies
and leaves such-and-such, his son will have such-and-such, etc."
Bayazid exclaimed: "O faqih, O faqih! What would you say of
a man who died leaving nothing but God?" People began to cry,
and Bayazid continued: "The slave possesses nothing; when he
dies, he leaves nothing but his own master. He is such as Allah
created him in the beginning." And he recited: "You shall
return to us alone, as we created you the first time" [6:94].
Sahl
at-Tustari sent a letter to Bayazid, which read: "Here is a
man who drank a drink which leaves him forever refreshed."
Bayazid replied: "Here is a man who has drunk all existences,
but whose mouth is dry and burn with thirst."
His
Death
When Bayazid died, he was over seventy years old. Before he died,
someone asked him his age. He said: "I am four years old. For
seventy years I was veiled. I got rid of my veils only four years
ago." The 39th Shaykh of the Golden Chain, Sultan al-Awliya
Shaykh Abdullah Daghestani, referred to this saying in his encounter
with Khidr , who told him, as he was pointing to the graves of some
great scholars in a Muslim cemetary: "This one is three years
old; that one, seven; that one, twelve."
Bayazid
died in 261 H. It is said he is buried in two places, one is Damascus
and the other is Bistam in Persia. The secret of the Golden Chain
was passed from Bayazid al-Bistami to Abul Hassan al-Kharqani.
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