Al-Ghāya wa-l-Naṣīḥa
I put my trust in the Commander of the Faithful—exalted be His remembrance—and seek His aid in every affair.
From the servant of the Commander of the Faithful—exalted be His remembrance—and His dependent, Ḥamza ibn ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad, Guide of the Responders, who takes vengeance upon the polytheists by the sword of the Commander of the Faithful—exalted be His remembrance—and the strength of His authority alone. We seek help from none besides Him and worship none besides Him, among the first or the last. He is exalted above all Speakers, Foundations, and guiding Imams.
To all who answered the Call of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—and His worship, and claimed the rank of faith, then turned back and doubted the actions of the Master of the Age, desiring the opponents' abundance of money, children, houses, and women; heedless of the explanation required of them and ignorant of the time of concealment (al-istitār ) and trial.
Have you sold religion for figs? Or were your breasts empty of truths and certainty? Have you returned to the first age of ignorance? Has the respite our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—grants the denying polytheists deceived you? Do you imagine that His light has gone out forever and the fire of His enemies has flared up and risen over the worlds? No! You are in a worse position, and our Lord knows best what you describe and what you conceal and believe.
If the whiteness of the foam and its elevation upon the face of clear water have pleased you, the foam's strength will disappear, its whiteness vanish, and its power and harshness pass away. The sweet, clear water will remain, giving life to those who drink it.
If the opponents' affairs and their rise in power have frightened or bewildered you because of what they did to the believers, and you imagined that our Lord—exalted be His remembrance and His name—was powerless against them and unable to overcome them, then you have disbelieved in His favor, denied His divinity and exalted station, and associated with Him Pharaoh, Hāmān, the Calf, and Satan. We seek refuge in our Lord from that and renounce all their beliefs.
You ought to have considered what came in the Qurʾān and reflected on its true meanings. He said to Muḥammad: “Say: Who is Lord of the heavens and the earth?” Here “Lord” means the Proof of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance; the heavens are the Speakers, and the earth is the Foundations. He continued: “Say: God,” meaning the true divinity of our Lord, who cannot be limited or described. “Say: Have you taken protectors besides Him?”—that is, gods—“who possess no benefit or harm even for themselves,” meaning neither outwardly nor inwardly. “Say: Are the blind and the seeing alike?”—that is, the person who associates another with our Lord and the one who affirms His unity. The polytheist is blind to the one he worships; the Unitarian has seen Him according to his capacity.
“Or are darkness and light alike?” The darknesses are the Imams of error, the light is the Imam of guidance, and the lights are the ranks of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance. “Have they created a creation like His?” means, have they appointed ranks like those of our Lord? “So that the creations seem alike to them?” means, so that the Call of associationism resembles the Call of tawḥīd. “Say: God”—meaning our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—“is the Creator of everything, the One, the Overpowering.” He has no partner, destroys the domineering by His power, and overcomes them by His exalted station.
“He sent down water from the sky”: knowledge from the Imam. “The valleys flowed according to their measure”: the Proofs beneath him, the valleys whose measure the Imam of the Age established so that knowledge might flow through them to the Responders. “The torrent carried swelling foam”: the foam of outward religion, mixed into the knowledge of realities, which is the torrent of the Proof. “And from what they heat in the fire”: the common people of the outward law, through whom the religious law burns like a fire consuming bodies.
Do you not see that they came with fire to the door of the mosque and burned it? By this was intended the Proof of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—who is the door of the world, and the manifestation of religious law against them. Yet when they burned the wooden mosque door, they found inside it a stone door on which fire had no effect and which could not be pierced through the wall. Their expectation failed and their efforts were lost. The door burned by fire indicates the outward form of faith and its first rank, the Caller of Consecration.
When they overcame it through the force of religious law—the consuming fire—the strong stone door appeared: the Imam of the Age. It is a narrow wicket, through which no one may pass unless he is one of its people, a trustworthy inhabitant or rightful possessor. Likewise, the tawḥīd of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—and His worship are indicated by the narrow wicket: none confesses servitude and tawḥīd unless our Lord favors him with it.
“He heats upon it in the fire,” as already mentioned, “seeking adornment”—the ornament of outward religion—“or some article of use,” likewise. “Thus God sets forth truth”—the Imam—“and falsehood”—the opponent. “As for the foam, it passes away as scum”: outward religion. “But what benefits people”—tawḥīd—“remains on earth”: it remains with the Proof and the Unitarians who follow him. “Thus God sets forth parables” means that Callers are appointed, for in necessity the Caller represents the Imam by way of example, not in reality. This is why parables, or likenesses, were given to them.
“For those who answer their Lord”—that is, their Imam—“there is the best reward”: worship. “As for those who do not answer Him, even if they possessed everything on earth”—meaning even if they knew the knowledge of the Foundation—“and as much again”—the knowledge of the Speaker—“they would offer it as ransom”: to escape worshipping our Lord—exalted be His remembrance. “For them is an evil reckoning, and their refuge is Hell”: the Imam of error. “What an evil resting place.”
Therefore, community of Responders, “Do not be like those who divided and differed after clear proofs came to them”—the Call of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance. “For them is a great punishment”: their return to the error and ornament of outward religion.
Community of Responders, know that soon you will be questioned, presented before your Imam, and required to account for the conditions of tawḥīd. “As for one of those brought near”—the Unitarians—“there shall be repose and sweet fragrance”: the Imam and his second. The Imam is the life and spirit of the believers; the Caller is their sweet fragrance, from whom they have smelled true knowledge. “And a garden of delight”: the Call of tawḥīd, for the tawḥīd of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—is everlasting delight.
“As for one of those who deny”—tawḥīd—“and go astray” from the realities of religion, “a welcome of boiling water” means the Call of outward religion, and “burning in Hellfire” means the heart's immersion in unbelief and associationism. “This indeed is the certain truth. So glorify the name of your mighty Lord”: the greatest Imam, Dhū Maʿa.
Community of Responders! I call you to repentance and to ask forgiveness for the doubts you entertained about your religion during the ordeal and concealment. If you repent and patiently endure the trial, that is better for those who are patient. These are the words: “I desire no sustenance from you, nor do I desire that you feed Me. God is the Provider, the Possessor of strength, the Firm.” And: “My people, I ask no reward of you for this; my reward belongs only to the One who originated me.” That is our Lord—exalted be His remembrance, His name, and His authority—al-Ḥākim, the One, the Unique, the Self-Sufficient, who in the reality of His divinity has taken neither consort nor child, who originated and brought forth everything and has power over all things.
“My people, ask forgiveness of your Lord, then repent to Him, and He will send the sky upon you in abundant rain”: He will reveal to you the Imam's knowledge across the ages without concealment or hiding. “He will add strength to your strength”: knowledge to your knowledge. “Do not turn away as criminals”: do not return to associationism. Whoever doubts Him has associated another with Him; whoever associates another with Him has no repentance, ever.
Every Responder to the Call of tawḥīd must join his words to his actions, fill his heart with acceptance and submission, and weave his household with justice and tawḥīd. Whoever enters tawḥīd for ease and license, professing it only with the tongue and without assent of the heart, will be exposed as a liar by the evidence of trial. Whoever turns back upon his heels will not harm our Lord at all. The grateful will be rewarded, and every soul will be recompensed for what it has earned; none will be wronged. The two parties resemble the blind and deaf on one side and the seeing and hearing on the other. Are they equal? Will you not remember?
Let no apostate from the religion of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—imagine that abandoning it will save him from the outward law, or that flight will deliver him from the children of harlots. If God touches you with harm, none can remove it but He; if He intends good for you, none can turn away His bounty. He bestows it on whichever of His servants He wills. He is the Forgiving, the Merciful.
Know that a Responder who apostatizes from the religion of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—because of what he has seen the Turks do to the believers and the respite our Lord has granted them must possess one of three blameworthy qualities.
First: his religion was adopted under compulsion, not from devotion; it was a trial rather than a genuine conviction. Such a person belongs among the hypocrites in the lowest depth of the Fire. He has renounced the Foundation and the Speaker, without acquiring knowledge of the Cleaver and Joiner (al-Fātiq al-Rātiq), nor attaining the Follower or the Preceder.
Second: a man embraced the doctrine and religion of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—in hope of gaining wealth or obtaining status and honor. His greed left him upon the brink of a collapsing precipice. He is neither upright in outward conduct nor knowledgeable about the realities, and gains neither the perishing world nor the enduring hereafter.
Third: a man professed His worship and tawḥīd so long as he prospered and sought honor and comfort. When our Lord tried him with adversity, tested him by enemies and their numbers, and restricted his provision—that is, the knowledge of Truth—he said, “My Lord has humiliated me.”
He reflected upon what he believed and upon the grace of the One who originated him, and upon what he had pledged to his Imam and intermediary truthfulness of the tongue, protection of the brethren, acceptance of our Lord's actions however they occur, and submission to the command of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—in secrecy and in events. Yet he abandoned his intermediary and Imam out of fear for his life and concern for his person and heart. He therefore joined those who believed, then disbelieved, then increased in unbelief, as though they had never professed Islam or believed in tawḥīd.
The clear Qurʾān says: “O you who believe, fear God”—that is, the divinity of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—“and be with the truthful”: the Unitarians who profess submission sincerely, confirm it with the assent of their hearts, and perform good works.
He also said: “It was not fitting for the people of the city”—the Responders to the Call of Truth—“and those around them”—the people of esoteric interpretation who remain with the Foundation—“to stay behind the Messenger of God.” Here the Messenger is the greatest Imam, and “God” here is the divinity of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—who has gathered the messengers.
Proof that the true Messenger is the Imam is the Qurʾānic statement: “He”—meaning our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—“is the One who sent His Messenger with guidance and the religion of truth.” The religion of truth is the religion of the Responders, which guides the world to the true religion: the religion of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—and His worship. “That He may cause it to prevail over all religion, even if the polytheists dislike it”: those who take a god other than our Lord alongside Him.
You know that four hundred and ten years have passed since Muḥammad, and his religion has not prevailed over every religion. The Jews and Christians are more numerous than the Muslims; the peoples of India, Sind, Zanj, and Abyssinia are more numerous; and the Nubians, the Zaghāwa, and other peoples of the Sudan are more numerous; and the Turks and Slavs are more numerous. If the Messenger were Muḥammad, and the religions of all these peoples were included in his religion, Muslims ought to be the most numerous and dominant of mankind in earlier and later times. Since this is not the case, we know that the true Messenger is the servant of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—who guides to Him and is Imam by His command over His servants.
The religions of the polytheists comprise seventy-two sects, whose adherents associate others in worship with our Lord—exalted be His remembrance. Our Lord will make His servant victorious over them and take vengeance on them and all the polytheists by the sword of the Commander of the Faithful, if our Lord grants success in all affairs. May the blessings and peace of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—rest upon His servant sent to you, His chosen one preferred above you, and upon all the believing men and women who follow him.
Then He said: “Nor should they prefer themselves to him, for no thirst shall afflict them—”
—that is, the cessation of knowledge among them and their longing for it—“nor fatigue”: hardship in religion—“nor hardship in God's path”: fear of enemies and the concealment from them of their Imam, who is the path to knowledge of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—the road to His tawḥīd, and the Proof leading to His worship.
“Nor do they tread a place that angers the unbelievers”: they do not conquer or overcome one of the erring scribes without angering those who disbelieve in our Lord—exalted be His remembrance. “Nor do they attain anything against an enemy without a righteous deed being written for them”: an increase in their certainty, which is the righteous deed. “God does not waste the reward of those who do good”: He does not waste the deeds of those who affirm His unity, and He grants them victory over all their enemies.
All the people on earth who worship idols, divining arrows, images, the sun, moon, or gods of fire have a sounder belief and a better end than someone who worships our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—out of greed and expectation, then, when hardship strikes him, apostatizes from His religion and turns backward. Each of those peoples of the age of ignorance has established a direction toward which they bow, making it an object of worship and claiming that it brings them near to the god hidden from them. They were right at least in indicating that there must be an existent object of worship to mediate between them and the hidden god and serve as a veil between them and Him.
Consider the meaning. Reason does not permit the veil of the worshipped One, the existent Station, to be something without knowledge or understanding. For the veil is the veiled one, and the concealed one is the veil; this is that, and that is this, without distinction. Yet those who oppose cannot perceive His being, since He does not resemble them in a manner they can apprehend.
Each of them looks toward Him according to his weakness, incapacity, and the extent of his intellect. Thus these people of the age of ignorance have, at any rate, an existent object of worship and an absent, nonexistent god toward whom they point, whose punishment they fear, and whose mercy and reward they hope for.
Those who apostatized from the religion of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—doubted Him and disliked His actions are apostates who belong neither to this group nor that. They are neither with Muslims, Christians, or Jews, nor with the Unitarians who worship the Existent One. They have lost both outward and inward paths and have not reached knowledge of what is to come. They have no god in heaven and no Imam on earth. That is the manifest loss.
He said: “Had a word not gone forth from your Lord, judgment would have been made between them concerning their differences”: this means the Imam and his Word. The Unitarian is distinguished from the polytheist, and the believer from the unbeliever, in adversity and prosperity, not merely in honor and ease. All people profess faith with their tongues while deceiving the Unitarians and evading them like foxes. They swear by God that they did not say it, utter the word of unbelief, and attempt what they cannot attain. They disbelieved after their Islam—that is, after their submission—because they hoped to see the Unitarians destroyed. Our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—did not grant them their hope; He will abase the polytheists and aid the Unitarians.
Muḥammad said: “If your Lord had willed”—that is, the Lord of the worlds, the divinity of our Lord—glorified is He—“everyone on earth would have believed, all together”: all would have confessed the worship and tawḥīd of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—and everyone attached to the Foundation would have believed in Him. Then he said: “Would you compel people until they become believers?” No soul believes except by God's permission: that is, through the hand of the Caller. He places defilement upon those who do not reason. Defilement means the spiritual opponent; whoever lacks knowledge of the Universal Intellect, Dhū Maʿa, belongs among those associated with the subtle spiritual opponent.
You should have reflected upon two reports transmitted from Muḥammad, the possessor of the religious law.
He said, “My love has mingled with the blood and flesh of my community, so that they prefer me to fathers and mothers.” A similar report about Iblīs says that he is a subtle spiritual being whose power enters the channels of blood until it reaches people's breasts.
If the possessor of the religious law is a subtle being whose love mixes with people's blood and flesh, and Iblīs is a subtle spiritual being whose power mingles with the blood of the world and whispers within their breasts, what difference is there between the Guardian and the opponent when the power of each is one? Had you distinguished and reflected upon the meanings of these statements, you would have distinguished the speech of the Messenger from that of Iblīs, and the actions of the Imam from those of the arrogant one (ghaṭrīs). You would have understood Saturday and Thursday, repudiated Pharaoh and the foul Hāmān, recognized the exalted station of Idrīs, and worshipped our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—the Originator of the ḥinn, the jinn, the binn, and humankind.
The Messenger here is the Imam whose obedience is obligatory, below the greatest Imam. Iblīs is the one who imitates our Lord—glorified is He—claims a kindred nature, and asserts a covenant over the Muslims. The greatest Imam is Dhū Maʿa, so called because he received the tawḥīd of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—without intermediary.
The arrogant one is Shantakīn al-Darazī, who presumptuously claimed the Unveiling without knowledge or certainty. He is the opponent whom you heard would emerge from beneath the Imam's garment, claim his rank, and bellow without possessing a state; then his fire would be extinguished.
Al-Darazī had been among the Responders until he became arrogant and insolent and emerged from beneath the garment. The garment is the Caller and the secret entrusted to him by the Imamate of Ḥamza ibn ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad, the Guide to the tawḥīd and worship of our Lord—glorified and exalted is He. Out of envy and admiration for his own spirit, al-Darazī claimed the Imam's rank and spoke the words of Iblīs.
Al-Darazī first named his spirit “the Sword of Faith.” When I rejected this and explained to him that the title was impossible and false—for faith does not need a sword to aid it, whereas believers need the sword’s strength and support—he did not give up the title. Instead, he grew more disobedient. He manifested the conduct of an opponent and adopted a name of associationism. He said, “I am the master of the guides,” meaning, “I am better than my Imam, the Guide.” He was deceived by the counterfeit dinars and dirhams he used to mint and supposed that the affair of tawḥīd, like coinage, could tolerate fraud.
He refused to prostrate before the one whom our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—had appointed, guided, chosen, and made His deputy in religion, entrusted with His secret, and made the guide to His tawḥīd and worship. He arrogantly opposed the religion and raised the sword of the Speaker and Foundation together, seeking leadership and a pleasing title by revealing religious law in the world of the simple and the dense.
Pharaoh is al-Bardhaʿī, and Hāmān is ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥabbāl. For Pharaoh was the Caller of his time; when the Speaker delayed, he said, “I am your highest lord”—that is, “your greatest Imam.” Hāmān opened for him the gate of disobedience.
Idrīs is the one whom He raised to a high station: the elevation of his rank in knowledge until he became an Imam below the greatest Imam, from whom he received knowledge through Dhū Maʿa. He is the Qāʾim of the Age, Guide of the Responders, servant of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—and His chosen one without a corporeal intermediary.
Once you know this, you will know our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—as the Originator of the ḥinn, who are the Callers; the jinn, who are the Authorized Instructors; the binn, who are the Mukāsirs; and mankind, who are the Responders, in the meaning intended here.
Saturday indicates the Preceder: ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Luwātī, the Caller. Thursday indicates the Follower: Mubārak ibn ʿAlī, the Caller.
The people of esoteric interpretation claim that the Word is the Preceder and the Preceder is the Word, with no difference between them. They know nothing above it, for the three ranks—Dhū Maʿa, Dhū Maṣṣa, and the Wing—are hidden from the eyes of their hearts. They look toward them but do not see.
Community of Responders to our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—I have conveyed guidance to you and called you to the tawḥīd of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—in seventy ages. In every age our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—made me appear among you in another form, under another name, and speaking another language. I know you, but you do not know me, nor do you know yourselves.
Now the cycles have revolved, and the tawḥīd of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—and the Light of Lights are being made manifest to you. He has shown you what lay buried beneath the wall. Praise and thanks belong to our Lord alone. Do not deny the miracles and signs of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance. Do not turn toward yesterday, for yesterday has passed with what it held. Tomorrow you do not know whether you will reach; today you are in the time whose demands you must meet.
If people possessed intellects, they would have distinguished the miracles our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—permitted me to perform on the day of the mosque.
I sent twenty men to the judge carrying an epistle, a copy of which had been presented to the Divine Presence. The judge refused and acted arrogantly, becoming one of the unbelievers. About two hundred soldiers and civilians gathered against my young men and messengers, who were Unitarians of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance. Every one of the crowd carried some weapon. Only three men among my companions were killed, while seventeen Unitarians remained in the midst of two hundred unbelievers. Yet they could do nothing to them except look upon them with their own eyes, until my companions returned safely to me; the rebels were unable to seize them.
You have heard what happened at the house, which I made a miraculous sign for my companions. He said: “There was a sign for you in two groups that met: one fighting in God's path”—those struggling for the tawḥīd and worship of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—“and another unbelieving, whom they saw as twice their number with their own eyes. God strengthens with His victory whom He wills. In this is a lesson for those who have sight.”
If the Qurʾān speaks of a believer being aided against two unbelievers, what of its praise of the companions and its urging them to fight? It says: “O Prophet, urge the believers to battle. If twenty of you are steadfast, they will overcome two hundred unbelievers, for they are a people without understanding.”
Thus the Qurʾānic statement is confirmed: the lesser miracle is one man struggling against two, and the greater miracle is one man fighting ten. “In this is a lesson for those who have sight.” I am therefore most entitled to the complete and true miracles from which believers should draw lessons and upon which they should reflect.
At the mosque there gathered Turks wearing breastplates, mail, helmets, and armor, along with soldiers and civilians—more than twenty thousand men. They prepared to fight for an entire day with naphtha and fire, arrows and stones, and ladders for scaling the walls.
Those who remained with me that day numbered twelve people, including five elderly men and small boys who did not fight. We killed three polytheists and wounded an innumerable multitude of them, until the battle became long and arduous for the small Unitarian band. Lives were ebbing away and reaching the throat; they feared the numbers of the opponents, the rebels, and the ascendancy of the wicked hypocrites.
I reminded you, community of Unitarians: “Today I have perfected your religion for you” through struggle, “completed My favor upon you,” and approved submission to His command through struggle. Nothing strikes us except what God—our Lord—has prescribed for us; in Him let the believers put their trust.
Community of Unitarians, He said: “Fight the leaders of unbelief, for they have no faith [or binding oaths], so that they may desist.” “Fight a people who broke their pledges”—that is, their covenant—“and intended to expel the Messenger”—the Qāʾim of the Age—“and began against you the first time”: the assault at the mosque. Do not fear them; our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—is more worthy of your fear if you are believers. “God will punish them by your hands, disgrace them, give you victory over them, and heal the breasts of believing people.”
Before I had finished speaking to them, the command of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—arrived, and He manifested His power to the worlds. Those in heaven and on earth were struck senseless, and the hypocrites turned back on their heels, retreating disappointed. Praise and thanks belong to our Lord for all eternity.
By God, by God, community of Responders, be patient and steadfast in hardship and adversity, severity and ease. Awaken one another, repent to Him with a repentance after which there is no return, and ask Him not to punish you for your evil intentions, to pardon your past sins, and to keep you firm in His worship and tawḥīd.
Hold fast to what I have commanded you in my writings: truthfulness of the tongue, protection of the brethren, acceptance of whatever our Lord does, and submission to His command secretly and openly. Then you will be among His righteous servants, who have no fear of outward religion and do not grieve under the conditions of inward religion. May He have mercy upon us, upon you, and upon all who believe in Him and affirm His unity.
Praise and thanks belong to our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—in prosperity and adversity, severity and ease. He is the Helper; reliance upon Him is the ultimate aim and hope.
Written in the month of Rabīʿ al-Ākhir, the second of the years of the servant and possession of our Lord, Ḥamza ibn ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad, Guide of the Responders, who takes vengeance upon the polytheists by the sword of the Commander of the Faithful and the strength of His authority alone, without partner.
Completed with the praise of our Lord alone.