Excerpts

Preface


Friday Noon Prayer is the central focus of the Islamic week, when Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace, spiritually addresses his global community through the mature imams, the knowledgeable leaders of prayer. My beloved Shaykh, Muzaffer Ashqi al-Jerrahi of Istanbul, used to introduce his talks on such solemn occasions with these powerful words: "I am presenting here simply an atom from the sun of knowledge, a drop from the ocean of knowledge."

I once dreamed of my noble Shaykh, dressed regally in robes and turban, speaking from a beautiful wooden minbar, the pulpit of the Messenger of Allah located in every holy mosque on the planet. Four Quranic chanters, who were his dervishes, stood around the bottom step of the pulpit. Esoterically interpreted, these were the Prophet Muhammad and his four rightly guided successors: Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali. This dream demonstrates how the original community of Islam, now apparently separated from us by fourteen centuries of linear time, is mystically replicated during each successive generation by authentic shaykhs and their loyal dervishes.

I am western born, liberally educated, with sound background in Greek, European, and Indian philosophy as well as in several religious traditions. In the Islamic year 1400, which was 1980 of the Common Era, I became one of the formal successors of Muzaffer Effendi. I knelt before him, side by side with my spiritual sister Fariha al-jerrahi, at the Mosque of Divine Ease, the Masjid alFarah, in New York City. After placing his magnificent green and gold turban upon my head, the Grand Shaykh opened his palms and offered this supplication: "May whatever has come into me from Allah and from the Prophet of Allah now enter into him." After this brief prayer, Shaykh Muzaffer removed his turban from my head and placed it on the western woman beside me. I would have enjoyed wearing it longer, but spiritual transmission, like turning on an electric light, is instantaneous.

Atom from the Sun of Knowledge is a verbal expression of the ineffable light that flowed into my being during that moment. This mysterious illumination has been raining down within me ever since from the green turban of Nureddin Jerrahi, the Light of Universal Religion, who lived three hundred years ago in Istanbul. My Shaykh, Muzaffer Effendi, was nineteenth in his line of successors.

These writings have manifested through inspiration, combined with literary effort, during the eleven years since this transmission took place. Many of them were composed during the holy month of Ramadan-fasting from sunrise to sunset, feasting and praying until one hour before the first light. This collection represents only a fraction of the spontaneous teachings that the author has presented orally during the eleven years of his responsibility as a Sufi guide, who is a friend to souls and an interpreter of dreams. Combined with its companion volume, Heart of the Koran, published in 1988, this work presents a comprehensive mystical interpretation of Islam.

These contemporary writings of a Western initiate are deeply rooted in the authentic traditions of the ancient Dervish Orders of the East, where for many centuries both Muslim men and Muslim women with social and familial responsibilities have been attaining the highest realization-mystic union with Supreme Reality.

These compositions can be tasted like nectar by the soul and tested like gold in the fire of the heart's longing and sincerity. Such teachings belong only to limitless Truth. They are not confined within any limited context of understanding, inducting that of the author.

The mystical writings collected here are not personal but represent the universal gift of an unbroken spiritual transmission covering fourteen centuries, beginning with the -messenger of Allah in the desert of Arabia. This lineage does not, strictly speaking, originate with the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace, since he considered himself a humble inheritor of the vast spiritual wealth of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Jacob, Joseph, Solomon, David, Moses, and Jesus, upon them all be peace.

In another sense, however, this prophetic wealth is the lineage of nur mubammad, the Muhammadan Light, parallel to the Christian teaching of the Logos. In the Gospels, the beloved Jesus proclaims, "Before Abraham was, I am." In the Hadith, or Oral Tradition of the Prophet, the beloved Muhammad announces from the same ecstatic level of conscious oneness, "I was a Prophet when Adam was still between water and clay."

These contemporary writings flow through the blessings of the sublime Ali, may Allah eternally enlighten his countenance, and his wife, Fatima the illumined, the magnificent daughter of the Prophet, and their sons, Imam Hassan and Imam Hussain, as well as the entire line of twelve noble descendants of Muhammad.


These writings are infused with the mysterious blessings of the four central poles of Sufism-Sayyid Ahmad Rufai, Sayyid Ahmad Badawi, Sayyid Sultan Abdul Qadir Gaylani, and Sayyid Ibrahim Dusuqi. These writings are fundamentally indebted to the great woman of Islam who opened wide the path of lover and Beloved, the noble Rabia al-Adawiya, may her secret be sanctified. The atmosphere of these writings is permeated, as is all mystical thought and experience in Islam, by the spiritual presence of the King of Lovers, Mansur al-Hallai, the King of Gnostics, Bayazid Bistami, and the Master of Sobriety, Junayd of Baghdad, may their astonishing spiritual secrets remain well guarded.

Also present through these writings are the sublime gnostic saints Muinuddin Chishti and Shah Naqshiband and their formal successors, Into these two noble lineages as well, the present author has received initiation. These writings fly on the two wings of Sufism, Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi and Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi, may their spirits be sanctified.

Finally, every movement of heart and mind expressed in these pages was kindled by the Cupbearer of Divine Love for all humanity, Sultan Muhammad Nureddin Jerrahi, the founding Pir of my Order. Nureddin Jerrahi carefully carried on the initiatory
line of the Khalwatis, established in Anatolia and settled in Egypt some seven hundred years ago. He gathered together the global riches of Sufism and was recognized by his contemporaries, through spiritual dreams, as the Axis and Seal of Love.

Whatever purity or sincerity is expressed through these writings is the gift of Allah through the intercession of our Pir's noble mother, Amina Taslima. That the book exists at all is due to the blessings of Allah flowing through the prayers of the modern successor to Nureddin Jerrahi, my Shaykh Muzaffer Ashqi, who came to America in 1978 and infused us with a new sense of love and responsibility. He brought with him to New York City the blue sheepskin of Pir Nureddin, which had never left the dervish lodge in Istanbul.

I accompanied Muzaffer Effendi on his eleventh and final pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina in 1980. Yet during the last seven years of his life, this great lover traveled fourteen times to New York City, having fallen in love with the open heart of America. Evidently, the Grand Shaykh found here in the West a greater spiritual priority for his life than in the holy cities of Arabia and the East.

How can I describe eleven years as spiritual guide to various dervish communities in the United States and Mexico? This communion of hearts and minds generated the writings collected here. Each selection the author composed for a certain community, read aloud to that community, discussed and elucidated in the sacramental presence of that community, and revised in the light of such discussion.

So many of my personal and cultural assumptions, and those of my friends in the Jerrahi Order, both eastern and western by birth, have been discarded or transformed. We have made, and must continue to make, subtle adjustments between what is appropriate for a traditional Islamic Order in the ancient East and what is appropriate for a mystical association of liberal-minded persons in the modern West-Muslim by birth, Muslim by adoption, Jewish, Christian, Bahai, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, Native American, and nontraditional. We continue to operate, however, with the blessing, guidance, and permission of the present Grand Shaykh of the Jerrahi Order, Sefer Effendi of Istanbul. The history of our community formation will make a significant study sometime in the future.

The maturing process in a Dervish Order is communal. The mystical ascension into Paradise consciousness, and beyond into the Garden of Essence, occurs hand in hand, hearts intertwined eternally. Meeting on Thursday nights for dbikr, the dynamic circle of Divine Remembrance, we encounter each other primarily as aspiring souls and only secondarily as personalities with psychological and sociological profiles. The living spiritual documents in this book belong to the landscape of the soul. They cannot remain fixed within any personal, cultural, historical, or religious framework. They are the very energy of essential Reality.

My only prayer is that the writings gathered here will provide an opportunity for further elevation to the sincere hearts of readers, from whatever traditional or nontraditional perspective they may come. Whether Atom from the Sun of Knowledge can also contribute to greater planetary appreciation and understanding of the noble way of Islam rests in Divine Foreknowledge alone.

LEx HIXON

NUR AL JERRAH1
MASJID AL-FARAH
1992/1413


Movements of Prayer

By the prayers of Islam, our physical body is transformed into the supreme spiritual instrument. These graceful, rhythmic movements are not simply to accompany salat but they are salat-the mysterious flow of Divine Energy through which Allah praises Allah and returns to Allah.

The miracle of salat is this. It is Divine Power and Mercy become visible and tangible, whether from the perspective of someone within the blessed lines of prayer or even for an outside observer who may know nothing about the tradition. Salat is an empirical demonstration of Divine Presence that manifests five times daily in almost all cultures on the planet today. Salat is therefore a Divine Gift to humanity as a whole, not just to a particular historical community.

Simply by observing the Movements of Prayer manifesting selflessly through Shaykh Muzaffer Effendi as he performed salat in his small bookshop near the Covered Bazaar in Istanbul, many persons were inspired to renew or intensify their practice of salat, and some persons even experienced the sudden return of lost faith. This is a spiritual gift called resurrecting dead bearts. Members of other sacred traditions, and even open-minded secular persons, have always experienced a mysterious attraction to and kinship with the prayers of Islam. Why? Because salat belongs to all humanity.

There are various interpretations for each Movement of Prayer. Oral Tradition teaches that each position represents a particular state of consciousness that the Prophet observed among angelic beings during the radiant night of his ascension. But the transformative power of these primal gestures of praise lies in actually performing them, not interpreting them with the limited intellect or even contemplating them in a mystical context. These movements themselves are rich sources of direct, wordless intuition and waves of ecstatic inspiration, open equally to both the sophisticated and the simple.

One sometimes smells the rose fragrance of the Prophet as one performs salat, his unique way of prayer, which is mystically led by him and takes place within his eternal prophetic heart. A single moment of such intimacy with Allah's beloved vastly intensifies the prayerful submission of the personal will to the infinite Divine Will, and is incomparably more fruitful than reading excellent scholarly treatises or exalted mystical poetry.

To lift both hands beside the head, palms open and facing forward, accompanied by the words of Divine Transcendence, allabu akbar, is the first distinct movement of salat. The open palms signify the openness of the entire being-including every strand of awareness, every cell of the body, and even every pore of the skin-to the Divine Radiance and Magnificence, Who does not fit into the universe yet resides within our secret heart. We are not praying to some limited divinity in front of us, but we are praying within one all-encompassing Consciousness. In fact, it is Supreme Reality praying through us and within us.

According to some masters of salat, this first gesture places the entire relative world behind us, including the personality and the will of the one who thinks he or she is performing salat. The faithful person is now elevated into soul awareness, surrounded entirely by Divine Light, which is uncreated and undifferentiated. As the Prophet used to supplicate, "May Divine Light be before me, behind me, to right and left, above and below. May my limbs be filled with Divine Light. May my skin be filled with Divine Light."

No description or image of this infinite luminosity can be adequate. Even to say that during salat we experience an ocean of light without shores is to impose subtle mental limits. An ocean and one who separately observes it are both created entities. Divine Light is not created, nor is It an entity, nor is it broken into subject and object. This high mystical knowledge is spiritually encoded in raising the hands and crying allabu akbar. It is not dependent on verbal instruction and therefore does not become a mere intellectual assertion. This is why salat is the most precious gift, chosen for us by our beloved Prophet Muhammad from the Divine Treasury.


The next Movement of Prayer is the union of both hands below the physical heart. This gesture indicates the concentration of the Divine Energy of salat at the center of one's manifest being. The right hand is placed over the left, establishing the affirmation of Divine Unity over all possible countertendencies of conditioned awareness.

There follows the chanting of Sura Fatiha, the opening chapter of the Glorious Quran, key to Quran and essence of Quran. According to Oral Tradition, this brief Sura, mystically termed the Mother of the Book, contains the spiritual power of the entire Quran, the cumulative revelation and blessing granted by Allah to 124,000 noble Prophets, beginning with Adam, upon him be peace. The Quran is not simply a revelation that originated with the beloved Messenger of Allah. The Quran contains the entire history of prophecy, and salat is the activation of that radiant history in our present experience.

At each of the seven verses, or spiritual steps, of Sura Fatiha, the practitioner of salat descends in contemplation through the seven levels of consciousness, from mystic union to separate individual awareness. This follows the way along which Holy Quran descended through the seven heavens into the adamantine heart of the Messenger. This metaphysical route also corresponds to the path of descent of the Prophet Muhammad from the Garden of Essence to bless this planetary sphere, once at birth and again when returning from his Night journey through the higher planes of Being.

The mystical practitioner of salat begins at the seventh station, where Divine Consciousness alone exists, experiencing solely the Divine Power flowing through the human voice as the first verse, or ayat, of the Glorious Quran: albamduffliabi rabbi-l-alamin, all praise flows from and returns to Allah, Who displays countless worlds. The term ayat also means Divine Sign or miracle. These seven ayats are miraculous signs manifested by Allah as each practitioner chants the Sura Fatiha, silently or aloud, at least thirty-four times a day. On this planet today, there are hundreds of millions of devout practitioners of salat chanting these seven verses.

To seal this invocation of the entire Quran, the affirmation amin is harmoniously intoned by the congregation or by individuals when praying in solitude. The amin is a distinct act of prayer, rftc purely human response, so be It. Each person must consciously accept this descent of Divine Energy that constitutes salat, because the drama of human and Divine is a synergy.

At this point the process of prayer reaches a high level of intensity. The precise Message and Blessing of Allah descends as certain verses from some six thousand verses of Quran. The selection is limited by the number of ayats known by heart, either by the individual praying in solitude or by the leader of congregational prayer. if the imam is a baftz, one who knows the entire Quran by memory in a manner as natural and easy as we remember our own name and place of birth, the selection is unlimited.

One hafiz reports that as he is completing the musical arabesques in the final verse of Sura Fatiha, the sound becomes like a bee, slowly descending upon a particular Quranic verse, as upon a flower of light in a vast Quranic rose garden. The actual ayat is revealed to his mind only at the moment of the amin.

Even if our selection of Quranic verses is extremely limited, we must recognize Divine Initiative in revealing the ayat at the moment of amin. We must cultivate the sense that these are Allah's Words we are chanting, Arabic sounds that bear Divine Energy, not human words filled with our own energy. Not only the various levels of meaning but the very resonance of the Arabic Quran is the Divine Resonance, streaming through the cooperating human instrument.

The next Movement of Prayer is the standing bow, hands resting on knees. The communication between nerves and muscles by which this deep bow is accomplished should be experienced as coming from Divine Power. Human intention proceeds from Divine Permission. As one pauses in the fullness of this bow, immersed in great reverence for Allah, certain words of praise first used by the beloved Prophet are whispered softly, with intensity and intimacy, as lovers whisper to one another. Allah Most Near manifests as absolutely near to the one who bows in salat--nearer than the hearts of lovers who experience emotional separation as well as affection, nearer even than we are to ourselves. This exclamation arises from joyful submission of one's will to Allah Most High, rather than expressing any individual supplication, which is part of personal devotion, not salat. Three times the prescribed phrase is repeated: subbana rabbi-I-azim, glory to the Supreme Teacher Who is sheer magnificence.

With the unhurried rhythm characteristic of salat, Divine Power again lifts the human instrument to the standing position, the sublime upright bearing of the true human being, reflecting the innate goodness and eternal dignity of the soul. While rising, one intones a prescribed cry of praise and expresses a further affirmation of gratitude when reaching the upright position, using a venerable Arabic phrase that first came from the lips of the noble Ali.

The next Movement of Prayer, punctuated as the others are by the cry of transcendence, allabu akbar, is an expression of total trust and total abandon. One releases any trace of separate individuality and plunges, with delicacy and balance, into the immeasurable ocean of full prostration. As the forehead makes contact with the earth-whether wooden or marble floor, prayer carpet, or simply bare ground-the soul melts into its Original Source. Another divinely revealed form of praise is whispered slowly, without any sense of personal initiative or even individual existence. Three times the words repeat themselves, without subject or object: subbana rabbi-I-ala, glorious is Supreme Reality.

Now Divine Power miraculously draws one forth from the ocean of union into a steady seated position, expressing the mystical state of diamond permanence within Allah. The human instrument is kept balanced there, like a pendulum in slow motion at the edge of its arc, and then is returned once more into complete prostration. Only the power of Allah could accomplish these movements, because there is no sensation of limited will. There is no ability or desire, only subtle rapture.

With the cry of allabu akbar, one is lifted miraculously from full prostration to the standing position. It is like the Resurrection. One stands without losing the sense of full prostration, the actual experience of submission to Allah, which is Islam. This cyclical process now repeats again, including the Sura Fatiha, the amin, and the other self-revealing ayats of Quran. But the touch of prostration remains on the forehead, where Divine Light is now streaming forth, for those whose heart's eyes are open. As the Messenger of Allah remarked most simply, "Prayer is Divine Light."

After the second cycle of prostrations, one remains seated on the heels, like a pendulum miraculously suspended at the edge of its arc. This is not a position of rest but blessed concentration and elevation. in this dimension of diamond clarity within Allah, one greets face to face the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace, the Prophet Abraham, and the entire prophetic lineage, including the circles of their loyal and fervent companions throughout history. But most intimately one faces the beloved one of Allah, greeting him in an Arabic grammatical form suitable only to close proximity: as-salamu alayka ayyuba-n-nabi, peace be upon you, 0 sublime Prophet.

Alive within Allah by Divine Life alone, one now witnesses Supreme Reality through the infinite I Am, no longer through the reflected I am. Even the physical position remains one of witnessing, as the right index finger and the big toe on the right foot both point in the mystic Direction of Prayer.

The prescribed words for greeting the Messenger of Allah, for witnessing Divine Unity, and for calling Divine Blessings upon all the noble Prophets and their spiritual families are repeated in Arabic, whether one is praying in Africa, Arabia, Russia, India, China, Indonesia, Europe, or America. The effect of using the ancient Arabic is to remove one from the personal associations of native language and to lift one into universal praise, unveiling the soul as a timeless companion of the Messenger of Allah, greeting him intimately in his own Arabic idiom. The masters of salat consider these Arabic greetings to be a conversation between Allah Most High and His beloved Prophet during his ascension, rather than a personal expression by the one who prays.

By participating in the original Arabic form of salat precisely as it was revealed to the Prophet of Islam, one is lifted above the play of cultural and intellectual preferences. one is also lifted above the powerful current of one's personal imperatives-biological, social, and even religious. Salat can therefore be said to transcend culture and religion, in the sense that they are mere human institutions, mere collections of inhibitions and obsessions. This is why salattravels so easily among historical societies, including the Eurocentric culture of the modern world, while continuing to retain its basic form, integrity, and effectiveness. Salat frees the human spirit from self-imposed limits.

Manifesting Divine Power of transformation and elevation, salat achieves the sanctification of space and time, the opening of the mystic path to everyone without distinction, and the unveiling of true humanity. Allah alone is capable of this miraculous feat, whether in the ancient world or in the modern and postmodern worlds. The original life of prayer, revealed directly to the beloved Muhammad and practiced so carefully by him, has been transmitted through bodies and minds of fourteen centuries of Muslim practitioners, and is now intertwined with our entire planetary civilization.

There exist at least four major schools of Islamic traditions concerning the performance of salat, each one recognized by the others to be genuine, that is, rooted in the life experience of the Prophet and transmitted through an authentic line of his spiritual successors. The beloved Muhammad, upon him be peace, lived in constant ecstatic communion and union with Allah Most High. He prayed in many different manners. Therefore one finds healthy and refreshing diversity as well as fundamental agreement among these schools of Islamic jurisprudence. Salat always manifests its unique spirit, which can be recognized instantly in whatever Islamic cultural environment one enters, regardless of variations.

The promise of salat--to establish the direct experience of Transcendence in the hearts and daily lives of all people, without discrimination on grounds of gender, race, or social status--has remained good throughout fourteen centuries of complex Islamic history, filled with the struggles of personal and collective egocentricity. Human institutions and human individuals have failed, never salat. The Divine Promise of salat is good until the End of Time.

The final gesture of salat is the Word of Peace repeated twice, first to the right along the lines of prayer and then to the left: assalam alaykum wa rabmatullahi, may the sublime Peace and compassionate Blessings of Allah be with you. The Peace and Mercy that have descended directly from the Garden of Essence now flow outward, through this final Movement of Prayer, to everyone in the vast planetary circles of salat, to angels who gather to witness and enjoy the miracle of salat, to every human being on the face of the earth, to subtle beings on other planes of existence, and to every creation of Allah. Salat is the gift of Peace and Mercy to all consciousness.

Through this culminating gesture, Allah transforms the participant in salat into a perfect instrument of Divine Peace, consciously immersed in the peace that comes from directly experiencing Supreme Reality. The Arabic word for peace, salam, indicates the essence of Islam, which is not a religious organization but an organic experience of entering Divine Peace through the open door of salat. The responsibility of Muslim men and women, whose daily lives have been thoroughly transformed by the dignity and radiance of these Movements of Prayer, is to share their wonderful experience of peace with all conscious beings, not verbally but existentially.

The highest meaning and function of religion is to be an open door through which the soul returns consciously into Divine Essence, not simply after death but already during this earthly life, which does not exist outside Divine Life. Authentic religion, therefore, always transcends its limited external forms by means of its own sacramental power, its own openness to limitless Reality. However, the organic form of the central sacrament-in the case of Islam, the noble salat, the open door into Divine Essence cannot be tampered with or dispensed with, but must be wisely protected and sustained.

Islam is to experience Divine Peace through the daily practice of prayer and prayerful living. This is the base of all religion. Thus, following the Holy Quran, we can speak of the universal Islam that abides at the heart of all the noble traditions revealed during human history. In this universal sense, Islam is the very design of the human soul, the secret of fruitful civilization, the inner functioning of creation. Never does the Quran suggest that Islam originated with the beloved Muhammad of Arabia. What is unveiled by the Prophet is salat, the active principle and transparent expression of the dynamic and essential peace called Islam.

Now salat is complete. The peace of conscious communion with Supreme Reality is transmitted once more to all creation. While still seated, the practitioner may recite various Quranic passages and may offer personal supplications. These forms vary slightly from one Islamic culture to the next. However, with the final word of peace, the fullness of salat, the miraculous descent of Divine Peace and Mercy, has once again been accomplished by Allah Most High.

Standing and reentering the multidirectional world of relativity, heart still facing the Direction of Prayer, one gives the kiss of peace or extends the hand of peace to all those who have shared this blissful communion with Divine Peace. One is now irradiated by inexpressible peace. Although invisible to ordinary eyes, the Light of Islam streams forth from the foreheads of those who have truly prostrated.

Having been imbued by the graceful rhythm of the prayers, one never rushes to salat or rushes away from salat. The Prophet, upon him be peace, once warned a Muslim to slow down his prostrations because he resembled a chicken pecking grain more than a true human being communing with the Source of the Universe.

One comes forth from the place of prayer to engage fully in Ide-as the Quran states, to experience the abundance of Allah. Yet one subtly retains the state of mystic union and instinctively anticipates the next opportunity to pass through the mysterious portal of salat, a precious opportunity that will occur again not in a year, month, week, or day, but within a few hours.