Question:
BRR
As salamu aleikum,
lately I watched a documentary about people who do not eat and drink since years but live from divine light. This tradition exists in many religions so I was wondering if in Islam we also have awlyah who subsist only through divine light?
Wa salam
Answer:
wa `alaykum salam,
Yes, we have that of course. Islam is the final and most perfect religion. Shaykh Hisham recently spoke on this:
Grandshaykh’s … said that there are many types of khalwah (seclusion). If you train yourself not to drink any water, there is a special khalwah that with awrad you can live without water. If you accomplish that you can live without food or water as you take energy directly from Allah (swt)…
Speaking recently about the Abdal, Shaykh Hisham said:
“And second, Allāh gave them power of sahr, to stay up all night, not to sleep…
As related by Ahmad in his Musnad, Prophet (s) said, “When you are in the jungle or desert and feel afraid, call on`ibādAllāh, (abdāl, the Substitutes, rijālAllāh), and they will come and support you.”
Allāh swt gave them the power of sahr `alā rāhat an-nās, to stay awake while people are asleep …They look after everyone through their spiritual means in order to lift up that one who is losing his faith or losing his duties during the day. They reach him and they don’t differentiate from one to another, as they have orders to reach everyone in need.”
Always, if there is food they eat and if there is no food, they don’t care, they don’t eat. Al-jū` is one of their characteristics, hunger. They want to feel with everyone, that there are poor people with no food, to sympathize with them, they do not eat. And this I saw in Grandshaykh ق and in Mawlana Shaykh Nāzim ق; they don’t eat, but we run to fill our stomachs and graze.”
Shaykh Hisham has explained that out of humility, and to appear “normal” such awliyaullah hide this power, and eat, drink, marry and so on like normal people, as our Holy Prophet (s) did, whereas in fact they are not in need of any of that for they subsist on dhikrullah.
Taher Siddiqui
