CONTENTS

Foreword by HRH Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad vii

Editor’s Introduction ix

THE FRAGRANT SCENT

Introduction 1
On Motivating Thoughts 6
On Spiritual Wayfarers and Spiritual Guides 53
On Remembrance 75
On Retreat 91
On the Manners of the Disciple 107

Bibliography 139
Index 143

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 THE FRAGRANT SCENT:
ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF
MOTIVATING THOUGHTS AND
OTHER SUCH GEMS

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. May God’s

blessings and peace be upon the Messenger of God and upon his household,
Companions and the Friends of God.

Introduction
This is a short and refined commentary on some excellent verses of
poetry that we have composed and entitled, The Fragrant Scent: On the
Knowledge of Motivating Thoughts and Other Such Gems (al-ʿArf al-ʿāṭir
fī maʿrifat al-khawāṭir wa-ghayrihā min al-jawāhir). May God, the
Outwardly Manifest in all loci of manifestation, be exalted above all
limitations!
The verses are the following:
Motivating thoughts, my dear, are four,
And they are those whose cases are diverse:
There are those attributed to Satan;
And those that emanate from the ego;
Others are attributed to the action of an Angel,
While the most significant are bestowed by He Who
has Dominion.
Thus, O spiritual wayfarer, their enumeration is
complete,
So know this and act; that a pitch-black night may be
dissipated.

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 THE FRAGRANT SCENT

First, I must mention a note of warning in which I resolve

any problematic issues that may arise in the course of this short
commentary (taʿlīqa) regarding the noble Qurʾān and other similar
things.

the qurʾān has an outward and an inward meaning

You should know that it has been firmly established through rig-
orously authenticated Prophetic sayings (bi’l-aḥādīth al-ṣaḥīḥa)
that every single verse of the Qurʾān has an outward meaning1
(ẓahran)—that is, its well-known and accepted commentary, whose
remit should not go beyond what has been transmitted. Indeed, the
Messenger of God (may God bless him and grant him peace) referred
to it in saying, ‘Whoever interprets the Qurʾān through his personal
opinion, let him take his seat in the Fire.’2 It has also been firmly
established through rigorously authenticated Prophetic sayings that
every single verse of the Qurʾān has an inward meaning (baṭnan). Its
remit is that it does not overstep the Book or the Prophetic Sunna,
and it should not be stated categorically that this inward meaning of

1 This is part of a Prophetic saying that was narrated by Ibn Ḥibbān in his rigor-
ously authenticated collection; Abū Ḥatim Muḥammad b. Ḥibbān al-Bustī Ibn
Ḥibbān, al-Iḥsān bi-tartīb Ṣaḥiḥ Ibn Ḥibbān, ed. Kamāl Yūsuf al-Ḥūt, Beirut:
Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1987, vol. i, p. 146. The text of this Prophetic saying,
which was reported by Ibn Masʿūd, is as follows: ‘The Messenger of God (may
God bless him and grant him peace) said, “The Qurʾān was revealed according
to seven letters; each verse of these has an outward and inward meaning.”’
2 Narrated by Tirmidhī; Muḥammad b. ʿĪsā al-Tirmidhī, Sunan al-Tirmidhī,
ed. Ibrāhīm ʿAṭwah ʿAwwaḍ, Cairo: Dār al-Ḥadīth, [no date], nos. 2950 and
2951. The second of these Prophetic sayings was reported by Ibn ʿAbbās, who
related that the Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace) said, ‘Be
fearful of God in reporting anything from me except that which you know,
for whoever intentionally lies about me, let him take his seat in the Fire; and
whoever interprets the Qurʾān through his own personal opinion, let him also
take his seat in the Fire.’ Tirmidhī stated that the first Prophetic saying was
well authenticated/rigorously authenticated (ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ) and the second was
well authenticated (ḥasan); Tirmidhī, ‘Wa-min sūrat fātiḥat al-kitāb’ in Sunan
al-Tirmidhī, Kitab Tafsir al-Qurʾān.

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 On the Knowledge of Motivating Thoughts and Other Such Gems

the verse is the only meaning intended and nothing else, for there
is a clear difference between such an interpretation and that of the
Esotericists (Bāṭiniyya).1 This type of interpretation instead belongs
to a form of supported meanings (min bāb wujūh al-iḥtimālāt), not by
recourse to reason (lā bi’l-ʿaql) and without insisting categorically
that it is the only intended meaning.
An example of this is the saying of Ibn ʿAbbās (may God be
well pleased with father and son and benefit through them) regard-
ing the saying of God Most High, He sends down water out of heaven,
and the wadis flow each in its measure (Q.xiii.17), said that ‘Water, in
this verse, means knowledge (ʿilm) while wadis (‘valleys’) means the
hearts (qulūb).’ Which is to say that from the heaven of the Divine
Presence (al-ḥaḍra al-ilāhiyya), God Most High manifests the water
of knowledge, and each valley of those hearts receptive to it flows
[with this water] into [their] souls (nufūs) to the extent of their
fullness with this knowledge. This type of interpretation is not
inadmissible when there is a shift from the outward to the inward
meaning, while at the same time affirming the outward meaning.
What is inadmissible is the Esotericists’ method of interpretation
that completely denies the outward meaning, which amounts to
clear disbelief (kufr).
In sum, this type of interpretation varies according to the state
(ḥāl) of the interpreter, in terms of the clarity of his understanding
(ṣafāʾ al-fahm), rank of gnosis (rutbat al-maʿrifa) and share of closeness
(qurb) to God Most High. It is in this context that Abū al-Dardāʾ
(may God be pleased with him) said, ‘A man does not fully under-
stand until he sees numerous layers of meaning in the Qurʾān.’
More amazing than this is the saying of Ibn Masʿūd (may God be
well pleased with him), ‘There is not a single verse except that it
has people who will know it [that is, its correct interpretation].’
Such words from him (may God be pleased with him) instigate
each genuine student possessing a lofty resolve to distil the sources

1 Bāṭiniyya is a reference to the Ismāʿīlīs.

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 THE FRAGRANT SCENT

of speech and understand its minute meanings and the obscure

secrets from his heart. Indeed, it was to this that Shaykh Miḥḍār1
(may God benefit by him) alluded when he said, ‘If I so wished, I
could dictate the equivalent of one hundred camel-loads [of vol-
umes] regarding the meaning of the words of God Most High, And
for whatever verse We abrogate or cast into oblivion… (Q.ii.106), and its
meaning would still not be exhausted.’
Let us go back and finish what we started [to say above]. We say
that every single verse of the Qurʾān also has a limit (ḥadd), such that
textual-based evidence should not be omitted in favour of reason in
its outward meaning and in its inward meaning; it should not over-
step the grammatical rules of the Arabic language [or] that which
is intelligible. Moreover, each verse of the Qurʾān has a place to
which one may ascend (muṭṭalaʿ )—that is, through it one ascends to
that which is beyond commentary (tafsīr) and interpretation (taʾwīl),
until one beholds the Speaker (Mutakallim), as was reported from

1 He was the Prophetic descendent, the very learned ʿUmar al-Miḥḍār b. al-Sayyid
al-Sharīf ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Saqqāf Bā ʿAlawī. Born in Tarim, he was the fore-
most shaykh of his time who possessed mastery in the method of the People of
Sufism (taṣawwuf). He memorised the Qurʾān while still very young, as well as
Nawawī’s Minhāj al-ṭālibīn and Sulamī’s Ḥaqāʾiq al-taṣawwuf. He travelled to Shiḥr,
Yemen and the two Holy Sanctuaries, and he kept the company of the greatest
scholars of his time. He died in 833/1429 and was buried in the Zanbal cemetery in
Tarim. See ʿAydarūs b. ʿUmar b. ʿAydarūs al-Ḥabshī, ʿIqd al-yawāqīt al-jawhariyya
wa-simṭ al-ʿayn al-dhahabiyya bi-dhikr ṭarīq al-sādāt al-ʿAlawīyya, Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa
al-ʿĀmiriyya al-Sharafiyya, 1317/1899, vol. ii, p. 121 and Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr
Bā ʿAlawī al-Shillī, al-Mashraʿ al-rawī fī manāqib al-sāda al-kirām Āl Abī ʿAlawī,
Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-ʿĀmiriyya al-Sharafiyya, 1319/1901, vol. ii, p. 244.

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 On the Knowledge of Motivating Thoughts and Other Such Gems

Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq1 (may God be pleased with him and benefit by
him), who said, ‘God has manifested Himself to His servants in His
Speech, but people see not.’ It is also reported that he once fainted
while performing the prayer. When he was questioned about it, he
said, ‘I kept repeating the verse until I heard it from the Speaker.’
When the Forelock of Divine Oneness (Nāṣiyat al-Tawḥīd) beck-
ons to the Sufi, and he lends his ear to God’s promises and threats,
ridding himself of everything other than God Most High, he becomes
ever-present in a state of contemplation before God and, upon recit-
ing the Qurʾān, sees his tongue (or the tongues of others) like the
tree of Moses (peace be upon him) when God made him hear His
address to him from it, [saying,] Verily I am God. May God bestow
this state upon us through His favour! He is indeed Magnanimous
and Generous.
Let us now begin what we have intended with the help of Him
Who exists and is besought by all. We say, you should know that
there are four widely known motivating thoughts (khawāṭir): lordly
(rabbānī), egotistic (nafsānī), angelic (malakī) and devilish (shayṭānī).

1 He was the most distinguished scholar and one of the most illustrious figures of
the household of the noble Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace),
our master Abū ʿAbd Allāh Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq b. Muḥammad al-Bāqir b. ʿAlī Zayn
al-ʿĀbidīn b. al-Ḥusayn, the grandson of the Messenger of God (may God bless
him and grant him peace) and the son of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib. He was born in Medina
in the year 80/699 (83/702 according to some sources). He was one of the most
distinguished followers of the Prophetic Companions (Tābiʿīn) and one of their
greatest scholars. He was given the agnomen, al-Ṣādiq, because he never lied.
He died in Medina on 15 Rajab 148/6 September 765 and was buried in Baqīʿ
cemetery. See Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr b. Khallikan, Wafayāt al-aʿyān
wa-anbāʾ abnāʾ al-zamān, ed. Iḥsān ʿAbbās, Beirut: Dār al-Thaqāfa, [no date], vol. i,
p. 327; Abū al-Faraj Jamāl al-Din b. al-Jawzī, Ṣifat al-ṣafwa, ed. Mahmūd Fākhūrī
and Muḥammad Rawās Qalʿajī, Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 1979, vol. ii, pp. 168–174;
and Khayr al-Dīn al-Ziriklī, al-Aʿlām: Qāmūs tarājim li-ashhar al-rijāl wa’l-nisāʾ min
al-ʿarab wa’l-mustaʿribīn wa’l-mustashriqīn, Beirut: Dār al-ʿIlm li’l-Malāyīn, 1984,
vol. ii, p. 126.

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 THE FRAGRANT SCENT

On Motivating Thoughts
the importance of knowing motivating thoughts
Knowledge about motivating thoughts is one of the most important
affairs of the servant because a motivating thought is the beginning of
an action (al-khāṭir awwal al-fiʿl) and its initiation (muftataḥuhu). This
is because actions stem from thoughts, whereas the servant is only
created for worship, which consists of actions. These actions that
emanate from thoughts become acts of worship in measure with the
soundness of thoughts, and this cannot happen unless one is able to
distinguish between them. Distinguishing these thoughts is therefore
the first thing that is obligated for the servant after the obligation
of knowing the Creator and prophethood. In fact, a scholar (may
God have mercy upon him) maintained that the knowledge (ʿilm)
that is incumbent upon one to seek in compliance with the saying
of the Messenger of God (may God bless him and grant him peace),
‘Seeking knowledge is an obligation upon every Muslim,’1 is the
knowledge of motivating thoughts (ʿilm al-khawāṭir). His reasoning
was that motivating thoughts initiate action; meaning that the nullity
of the former entails the nullity of the latter.
However, this position is untenable because the Messenger of
God (may God bless him and grant him peace) made this [pursuit of
knowledge] obligatory for every Muslim, and not all Muslims pos-
sess the innate nature (qarīḥa) and gnosis (maʿrifa) that allows them to
know thoughts. The obligation to know thoughts therefore applies
to the elites (khawāṣṣ) who possess sound and innate natures. The
dependence of the soundness of actions on knowledge of thoughts
should be understood in terms of fully discerning whether or not
they are acceptable; not in terms of their legal capacity.
Once this is known, the student should know that motivating
thoughts are like seeds; some of them grow into shoots of felic-
ity (saʿāda) and others into shoots of damnation (shaqāwa). Those

1 Narrated by Ibn Māja; it is a well-authenticated Prophetic saying.

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 On the Knowledge of Motivating Thoughts and Other Such Gems

that grow into shoots of felicity are motivating thoughts from the
Abidingly Real (khāṭir al-Ḥaqq)—except when one is angry—and
[they are] also angelic thoughts (khāṭir al-malak). And those that
grow into shoots of damnation are egotistic motivating thoughts
(khāṭir al-nafs)—except when one is in a state of tranquillity—and
[they are] also devilish thoughts (khāṭir al-shayṭān)—except when
Satan intends to deceive one by manifesting good thoughts until
he draws the servant to an evil thought, or when he manifests a
good thought in order to distract the servant from something that
is more important than it.

reasons for the misconceptions concerning

motivating thoughts
There are four reasons for the misconceptions (ishtibāh) concerning
motivating thoughts (not five), and when they are removed, one
will know [which] motivating thoughts are beneficial (nāfiʿ ) and
[which] are harmful (ḍārr). Only then can one seek the former and
flee from the latter. The first of these reasons is a weakness of cer-
tainty (yaqīn) about matters relating to the Afterlife, or about those
who report about that. The second is a lack of knowledge through
which the attributes of the soul (ṣifāt al-nafs) and its character traits
(akhlāqahā) are known, which is seeking what is beneficial and flee-
ing from what is harmful. When these are not known, the ego (nafs)
confuses what is beneficial with what is harmful (and vice versa) as
a way of seeking what it desires and avoiding what disagrees with
its base desire (hawāhā). The third cause is pursuing one’s base desire
even when one knows that this will cause one to err from God’s
path (sabīl Allāh), and [despite knowing] that, whoever errs from
His path will receive a severe chastisement. Even then, the ego may
overpower a person to the point where he loses control over it
because he has not bridled it by means of God-fearingness (taqwā),
and has let it be used to indulge its desires. When this happens, the
foundations of God-fearingness are unsettled and darkness seeps

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 THE FRAGRANT SCENT

into the heart (qalb). The heart then does not have enough light
with which to ward off the darkness of the ego, thus allowing
the ego to overpower him. The fourth cause is love of the world
(maḥabbat al-dunyā) due to its glory and wealth—not inasmuch as
it leads a person to desires (shahawāt), but because it leads him to
seek exultation through riches and status in the eyes of people. The
differences between all of these [reasons for misconceptions about
motivating thoughts] can be understood from what we have already
mentioned.
A distinction may be made between knowledge (ʿilm) and cer-
titude (yaqīn) by saying that knowledge is an emphatic belief that
corresponds to fact, whereas certitude is feeling the coolness of this
emphatic belief and its groundedness in one’s heart. The difference
between, [on the one hand,] pursuing base desire (hawā) or love of
this world (maḥabbat al-dunyā), and, [on the other,] the character
traits of the soul (akhlāq al-nafs), lies in the fact that character traits
are the principles of actions, whereas pursuance is itself an action.
The difference between pursuing base desire and love of this world
lies in the fact that the lover of this world may toil and shun food
and sex for its sake, just as he might enjoy status and not find any
joy in food or sex.
Whoever has been spared from these four [reasons] becomes
strong in faith (qawīy al-dīn) and perfected in his knowledge (kāmil
al-maʿrifa) of the ego and its character traits. He has bridled his ego
through God-fearingness (taqwā) and has perfected his renuncia-
tion (zuhd) in this world, with all its wealth and glory. Moreover,
after firstly distinguishing between the inspiration of the Angels
(lammat al-malak) and the whispering of Satan (lammat al-shayṭān),
he has then ended up knowing the motivating thoughts of the ego
and the motivating thoughts of the Abidingly Real.
Whoever has been afflicted by all of these matters does not recog-
nise motivating thoughts, or seek them, out because he does not have
a firm enough belief in matters of the Afterlife to seek knowledge of

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 On the Knowledge of Motivating Thoughts and Other Such Gems

that which is beneficial and that which is harmful [in terms of ] the
Hereafter (and [it should be noted that] what is beneficial and what
is harmful is only considered in relation to matters of the Afterlife
by the People of Truth); although he is ignorant of the true nature
of what the ego seeks, wrongly thinking that everything that the ego
seeks is beneficial and that everything it flees from is harmful, even
then, base desire compels him to that, and love of this world [also]
helps him to that end, which is the root of all sin.

knowledge of the soul

The unveiling (inkishāf ) of some motivating thoughts to the
exclusion of others is due to the existence of some of these four
things and the absence of others. The most mindful of people in
the assessment of motivating thoughts (taqwīm al-khawāṭir) is also
the most mindful in the knowledge of the soul (maʿrifat al-nafs).
Knowledge of the soul is extremely difficult. It can scarcely be
acquired unless one reaches the utmost [degree of ] renunciation
and God-fearingness. It is for this reason that the Prophet (may
God bless him and grant him peace) linked knowledge of God
with knowledge of the soul when he said, ‘Whoever knows his
soul knows his Lord.’1 This is like linking knowledge of the day
with knowledge of the night, for were it not for the onset of night,
the merit of the day would remain unknown. Likewise, were it
not for knowledge of the soul, the station of servanthood (maqām
1 This saying was mentioned by the Ḥadīth master Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān
al-Sakhāwī, in his al-Maqāsid al-ḥasana fī bayān kathīr min al-aḥādīth al-mushtahara
ʿalā al-alsina, ed. Muḥammad ʿUthmān al-Khisht, Beirut: Dār al-Kitab al-ʿArabī,
1985, p. 490, ḥadīth no. 1149. It was related from Abū al-Muẓaffar al-Samʿānī
that he said, ‘This saying is not known as being attributable to the Prophet
(may God bless him and grant him peace). Rather, it is attributed to Yaḥyā b.
Muʿādh al-Rāzī.’ Imam al-Nawawī also mentioned that this saying could not be
established as a Prophetic saying, while Mulla ʿAlī al-Harawī al-Makkī al-Qāriʾ
included it as a fabricated saying in his collection of forged sayings entitled,
al-Maṣnūʿ fī maʿrifat al-ḥādīth al-mawḍūʿ, ed. ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ Abū Ghudda, Aleppo:
al-Matbūʿāt al-Islamiyya, 1994, p. 189.

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 THE FRAGRANT SCENT

al-ʿubūdiyya) would not be known and, a priori, nor would the

station of Lordship (maqām al-Rubūbiyya) be fully known either.
Despite the utter purity of his soul, the Messenger of God (may
God bless him and grant him peace) was always indigent before his
Lord by seeking refuge in Him from its evil. He used to say, ‘[O
God!] Do not consign me to my ego (nafsī) for [even] the blink of
an eye, and protect me the way a newborn baby is protected.’1 That
is, protect me the way a caring parent protects his child, lest it be
taken or snatched away by others. When Shaykh ʿAydarūs2 (may
God benefit by him) realised the station of Muḥammadan inheri-
tance (al-wirātha al-Muḥammadiyya) from his grandfather (may God
bless him and grant him peace), he used to say, ‘I am the servant of
God who is in need of Him at every breath.’
When the seeker becomes convinced of this lack, he is in fact
following the Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace)
in his most eminent station, which is seeing the essential evil of
the ego (sharr al-nafs al-dhātī) in the station of the soul’s tranquil-
lity and perfected traits. This is because that which is [part of ] the
essence (mā bi’l-dhāt) [of the seeker] cannot be completely removed
by [anything] other [than God]. This is a refined and subtle insight
that is only revealed to he who possesses such perfect gnosis (maʿrifa)
that he is not deluded by anything manifested of the soul’s traits or
whatever is obedient to it.

1 The first part of this Prophetic saying was narrated by Ḥākim Naysābūrī and
is well authenticated; see Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, al-Mustadrak
ʿalā al-ṣaḥiḥayn wa-bi-dhaylihi talkhīṣ al-mustadrak li’l-Dhahabī, Riyadh: Maktabat
al-Maʿārif, [no date], vol. i, p. 730. As for its addendum, I could not trace it.
2 He was the Prophetic descendent ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī Bakr b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān
al-Saqqāf, better known as al-ʿAydarūs. He was born in the city of Tarim in the
year 811/1408. He studied under a group of jurisprudents and Sufis and excelled
in three of the disciplines of the Sacred Law: Qurʾānic exegesis, Ḥadīth and
Islamic law. Scores of students graduated at his hands. He was the author of
numerous books. In the year 865/1460, he died at the age of 54 on the Shahar
road and was buried in Tarim. See Ḥabshī, ʿIqd al-yawāqīt, vol. ii, pp. 118–119.

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