Question:
Salaamu alaykum wr wb. Bismillahi Rahmaani Rahiim.
May Allah forgive us. I’ve read the article about G.I. Gurdjieff visiting our beloved Grandshaykh (q). Also one Waliullah in Pulau Penang, Malaysia advised me to read that ayat daily, saying “100 times is enough”.
Could you please reveal us more knowledge about this ayat? Forgive my lack of adab, this verse is driving me crazy.
Salaamu alaykum wr wb.
Answer:
This verse is:
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{“Peace!” – a word (of salutation) from a Lord Most Merciful!} (Surah Yasin, 36:58)
and is related to the Nine Points of the Enneagram. There are five words in the verse and between them four “spaces” making nine. Each word represent one of the five Qutbs and the four space represent the four Awtad.
Shaykh Hisham writes:
“The conditions related to opening these nine points can only be alluded to obliquely.
- The first station involves the power of imprisoning the ego.
- The key to the second state is Dhikr with la ilaha illa ‘Llah.The third state consists in witnessing the engraving of Allah’s Name on the heart (naqsh).
- The fourth state relates to the meaning of that engraving on the heart.
- The fifth state is to imprint the engraving with your dhikr.
- In the sixth state the heart is made to stop pumping at will and to start pumping at will.
- The seventh state is to be aware of the number of times one stops the heart from pumping and the number of times one restores the pumping of the heart.
- “In the eighth state one mentions the phrase Muhammadun Rasulullah in every cessation of the heart and every restoration of its pumping.
- The ninth stage is to return to your Cave, as Allah mentioned in Surat al-Kahf, {When ye turn away from them and the things they worship other than Allah, betake yourself to the Cave: your Lord will shower His mercies on you…} (Surat al-Kahf, 18:16).
The five highest levels of Qutb are:
- Qutb, (the first level) is the one whom Allah granted a power to extract new knowledge from the heart of Sayyidina Muhammad.
- Qutb al-Bilad, is responsible for the order of this world and to hold it together. He knows the needs of every race and group of creatures.
- Qutb al-Irshad, advises the 124,000 awliya. He is the wali under whom all awliya receive guidance and then guide their students.
- Qutb al-Mutassarif, is the one who monitors what everyone does in this world, and from him to awliyaullah, and from awliyaullah to their students. He is authorized to channel “the Happy Angels” (as we described before) to different people and creatures, and is responsible even for the smallest worm that dwells inside a rock. All of these are coming from Sayyidina Muhammad (s).
- Qutb al-Aqtab, supervises and is responsible for all other aqtab.
As for the four spaces, they represent the four Awtad, which are another type of saint. About them, Shaykh Hisham said:
So the Awtad are the tent pegs for earth. And the Prophets are the pegs for humanity. And the `ulama are the pegs of dunya – “al-`ulama warithat al-anbiya” – for the scholars are the inheritors of the prophets.
Ibn `Ata said, “The Awtad are the people of istiqama wa ‘s-sidq, straightforward and on truth. The Ahwal never change them and they are in the Maqam of tamkeen – stability. The level of stable perfection.
The Awtad are four from human beings. The first of them keeps the east. His name according to awliyaullah is `Abdul-Hayy. The second protects the west and his name is Abdul `Aleem. The one who protects the north is called `Abd al-Murid, and the fourth protecting the south is named`Abd al-Qadir.
Taher Siddiqui
