بِالسَّنَدِ
المُتَّصِلِ إِلَى الشَّيْخِ الجَلِيلِ ثِقَةِ الإسْلامِ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ
يَعْقُوبَ عَنْ عِدَّةٍ مِنْ أَصْحَابِنَا، عَنْ أَحْمَدَ بْنِ مُحَمَّدِ
بْنِ خَالِدٍ، عَنْ غَيْرِ وَاحِدٍ، عَنْ عَلِيِّ بْنِ أَسْبَاطٍ، عَنْ
أَحْمَدَ بْنِ عُمَرَ الحَلالِ، عَنْ عَلِيِّ بْنِ سُوَيْدٍ، عَنْ أَبِي
الحَسَنِ الأَوَّلِ عَلَيْهِ السَّلامُ قَالَ: سَأَلْتُهُ عَنْ قَوْلِ
اللهِ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ: ﴿وَمَنْ يَتَوَكَّلْ عَلَى اللهِ فَهُوَ حَسْبُهُ.﴾
فَقَالَ: التَّوَكُّلُ عَلَى اللهِ دَرَجَاتٌ؛ مِنْهَا أَنْ تَتَوَكَّلَ
عَلَى اللهِ فِي أُمُورِكَ كُلِّهَا، فَمَا فَعَلَ بِكَ كُنْتَ عَنْهُ
رَاضِياً، تَعْلَمُ أَنَّهُ لا يَأْلُوكَ خَيْراً وَفَضْلاً وَتَعْلَمُ
أَنَّ الحُكْمَ فِي ذَلِكَ لَهُ، فَتَوَكَّلْ عَلَى اللهِ بِتَفْوِيضِ
ذَلِكَ إلَيْهِ وَثِقْ بِهِ فِيهَا وَفِي غَيْرِهَا.
Muhammad ibn Ya’qub (al-Kulayni): from a group of our teachers, from
Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Khalid, from more than one transmitter, from ‘Ali
ibn Asbat, from Ahmad ibn ‘Umar al-Hallal, from ‘Ali ibn Suwayd, from
Abu al-Hasan al-’Awwal (A). ‘Ali ibn Suwayd says, ‘I asked him
concerning the utterance of God Almighty: And whoever puts his trust in
God, then God suffices him (65:3).’ The Imam (A) said: “There are
various degrees of trust in God. Of them one is that you should put your
trust in God in all your affairs, being well-pleased with whatever God
does to you, knowing for certain that he does not cease in His goodness
and grace towards you, and that the command therein rests with Him. So
put your trust in God, leaving that to Him and relying upon Him in
regard to that and everything other than that.”
Halal, with a
shaddah on the
lam, means the seller of
hill, oil
. Abu
al-Hasan al-’Awwal is Imam al-Kazim (A), and it is he who is meant (in
traditions) when just ‘Abu al-Hasan’ is mentioned. Abu al-Hasan al-Thani
is Imam al-Rida (A) and Abu al-Hasan al-Thalith is Imam al-Hadi (the
Tenth Imam).
Tawakkul literally mean, admission of one’s inability and reliance on one other than oneself.
(إتَّكَلْتُ عَلَى فُلانٍ فِي أَمْرٍ) means, as the lexicographers ‘I relied upon him in a certain matter, the word (إتَّكَلْتُ)originally being
(إوْتَكَلْتُ), which means considering someone sufficient.
(يَأْلُوكَ) derived from (ألا) and (ألواً) meaning ‘to fail’, ‘to
neglect’, ‘to refrain’. In the transitive form, some have said, when it
requires two
maf’ul, the sense of preventing and depriving (
man’)
is
assured ....
Tawakkul, is
something other than
tafwid; and the two are different from
rida and
wuthuq, as will be explained later on. We will now explain this noble tradition in a number of sections:
Know, that closely related meanings have been ascribed to
tawakkul by the various definitions proposed by different schools, each according to its own approach. The author of
Manazil al-sai’rin says:
التَّوَكُّلُ كِلَةُ الأَمْرِ كُلِّهِ إلَى مَالِكِهِ وَالتَّعْوِيلُ عَلَى وَكَالَتِهِ.
Tawakkul means entrusting all the matters to their Master and relying upon His trusteeship.
Some
urafa have said:
التَّوَكُّلُ طَرْحُ البَدَنِ فِي العُبُودِيَّةِ وَتَعَلُّقُ القَلْبِ بِالرُّبُوبِيَّةِ.
Tawakkul means throwing the body down (as in prostration) in servitude (to God) and attaching the heart to (His) Lordship.
That is, it means using one’s bodily powers in obedience to God and
refraining from interfering in the matters (of the heart) and consigning
it to the Lord. Some others have said:
التَّوَكُّلُ عَلَى اللهِ انْقِطَاعُ العَبْدِ فِي جَمِيعِ مَا يَأْمُلُهُ مِنَ المَخْلُوقِينَ.
Tawakkul upon God means the severance by the servant of all hopes and
expectations from the creatures (and attaching, them to God).
The meanings mentioned are. closely related arid there is no need to
delve further on the meaning of the word. However, that which should be
mentioned is that
tawakkul has various degrees in accordance with the stations of the devotees. Since the knowledge of these degrees of
tawakkul depends
on the knowledge of the various degrees of the devotee’s knowledge of
their Lord, the Almighty and the Glorious, we cannot avoid discussing
them here.
Let it be known to you that one of the esoteric principles of the
wayfarers of the Path, without which no progress is possible, is the
knowledge of God’s Lordship and Mastership and the quality of the sway
of the Holy Essence over all affairs. We shall not discuss the
theoretical aspect of this issue, for it calls for an examination of
questions related to free will and predestination, which is not suitable
for these pages. Here, we will only mention the different degrees of
the people’s knowledge of it.
People are very different in regard to the knowledge of the Lordship
of the Sacred Essence .of God. The commoners among the monotheists
consider God Almighty the Creator of the general essences of things and
their elements and substances; but they do not believe in the
all-embracing Lordship of God, and consider His authority over things as
limited. As a matter of verbal habit they may often declare that God
decrees all matters and has power over all things, that nothing can come
into existence without His sacred Will. Yet, their actual station is
not at a par with their verbal profession, neither in respect of
knowledge, nor faith, neither experience nor conviction.
This class of people, to which we also belong, have no knowledge of God’s Lordship; their faith in
tawhid is
deficient
and the sovereignty of the Lord is concealed from their sight by the
veils of apparent causation. Hence they do not occupy the station of
tawakkul, which
is our concern here, except on the level of mere verbal claim.
Accordingly, they do not rely in their worldly affairs on anything
except the superficial causes and material factors.
If sometimes they turn their attention to God and beseech something
of Him, that is either on account of imitation or for reasons of
caution; since not only they see no harm in it but allow a possibility
of benefit. Thus there is a scent of
tawakkul in them, although whenever they deem the apparent causal factors as favorable they totally forget God and His efficacy.
Now that which is staid regarding
tawakkul, that it is not
opposed to action and effort is quite right and in accordance with
reason as well as revelation. But to fail to see God’s Lordship and His
efficacy and to consider material causes as independent is contrary to
tawakkul. Although this kind of people is devoid of
tawakkul in respect to their worldly affairs, they make vigorous claims of
tawakkul when
it comes to the matters of the Hereafter. They justify their
sluggishness and neglect in the matters of acquisition of transcendental
knowledge, spiritual development and fulfillment of moral and
devotional duties by easy professions of reliance on God and
tawakkul on His beneficence.
With such verbal declarations as ‘God is great’ and ‘My trust lies in
God’s beneficence’ they hope to attain the stations of the Hereafter.
However, in regard to worldly matters, they declare, “Effort and
endeavor are not contrary to
tawakkul on God and reliance upon
His munificence.” This is nothing except one of the guiles of the carnal
self and the Devil. For this sort has
tawakkul on God neither
in the matters of the world nor in the affairs of the Hereafter. But
since they consider worldly matters as paramount, they put their
reliance on material causes, not relying on God and His efficacy.
On the other hand, since the affairs of the Hereafter are not
important in their eyes and as they have no real faith in the Day of
Resurrection and its details, they conjure up pretexts to conceal their
neglect. Hence they say, ‘God is great’, and they declare trust in God
and faith in the intercession of the Intercessors, although such
professions are nothing but empty verbiage and meaningless oscillations
of the tongue.
There is another class of people, who, having been convinced either
by reason or revelation, affirm that God Almighty is the sole determiner
of matters, the cause of all causes, efficacious in the realm of being,
there being no limit to His power and influence. On the level of
rational belief, they have
tawakkul in God; that is the complete grounds of
tawakkul have been furnished for them by reason and revelation.
Hence they consider themselves as
mutawakkil and are able to supply rational proofs in justification of
tawakkul, having confirmed rational conviction in all the essential preliminaries of
tawakkul, which
are: God’s knowledge of the needs of His creatures; His power and
ability to satisfy those needs; His freedom from stinginess; and His
Love and mercy for His creatures. On the basis of these, it is necessary
to have trust on the Omniscient, Powerful, unniggardly and Merciful
Lord, Who takes care to provide whatever is good for His creatures and
in their interest, Who does not allow them to remain deprived of what is
good for them, even though they themselves should be incapable of
distinguishing between that which is beneficial or harmful for them.
This group, although they are
mutawakkil on the level of
rational knowledge, has not yet attained the stage of faith; they are
shaky when confronted with the matters of life. There is a conflict
between their reason and their heart, in which reason is dominated by
the heart which has faith in material causes and is blind to God’s power
and efficacy.
There is a third group in which the conviction in God’s sway over
creation has penetrated into the heart, which has firm faith in God’s
Sovereignty and Mastership over things. The pen of reason has inscribed
all the essentials of
tawakkul on the tablet of their heart. It is they who possess the station of
tawakkul.
But the members of this group also differ from one another in regard
to the level and degree of faith, whose highest degree is contentment (
itminan) at which the most perfect degree of
tawakkul appears
in their heart. Then, their heart is detached from causation and
attached to the Lordship of God, on Whom they rely and in Whom they-are
content, in accordance with the words of the mystic who defined
tawakkul as “casting the body away in servitude to God and attaching the heart to His Lordship.”
That which was mentioned above holds true in the case when the heart still dwells in the stage of plurality (
kathrat al-af’ar)
otherwise it leaves behind the station of
tawakkul to attain to a higher station whose discussion lies outside the scope of this exposition.
Thus, it was seen that
tawakkul has various stages and degrees, and perhaps the degree of
tawakkul referred to in the
hadith
is the one pertaining to the second group, for it mentions knowledge as
its preliminary condition. Or perhaps it refers to a degree of
tawakkul according to some other mode of gradation, for
tawakkul is
amenable
to another kind of gradation, as described in relation with the various
stages of wayfaring by the experts of mystics knowledge and spiritual
discipline, as a gradual gradation from plurality to unity; for absolute
extinction (
fana’ al-mutlaq al-af’ali)
is
not
attained instantaneously but gradually. In the first stage, the
wayfarer observes unity in his own self and then in all other beings.
The stations of
tawakkul, rida, taslim and all the other stations are attainable gradually. The wayfarer may at first exercise
tawakkul in some of his affairs and with respect to hidden and unobservable causes. Then, gradually, his
tawakkul becomes
general, in that it extends from hidden and inner causes to manifest
and observable ones and from his own affairs to that of his relatives
and associates. Accordingly, it is stated in the holy tradition that one
of the degrees of
tawakkul is
trust in God in all one’s affairs.
Let it be known to you that the station of
rida is different from the station of
tawakkul, being higher and more luminous. This is because whereas the
mutawakkil seeks his own good and benefit and entrust his affairs to God considering Him the provider of good, the
radi (one who has attained the station of
rida)
is
one who has annihilated his will in the Divine Will, having no more a separate will of his own. When a mystic was asked, “
Matur’id?” (What is your wish?), he replied,
“Urid an la urid” (My
wish is not to wish at all). What he meant is the station of
rida.
As to the words of the Imam (A) in the
hadith, “that you should be well-pleased (
radiyan)
with whatever God does to you,” they do not refer to the station of
rida. Hence,
he (A) says thereafter, “Know for certain that whatever He does to you,
your good and benefit lies therein.” It appears that the Imams (A)
intended to bring about the station of
tawakkul in the
listener. For this he mentions certain preliminaries. First, he (A)
says, “Know that He does not cease to be good and benign towards you.”
Then he (A) says, “Know that the authority therein lies with Him.” Of
course, one who knows that God Almighty has power over everything and
that He does not cease to be graceful and benign, he would attain to the
station of
tawakkul, because the two main pillars of
tawakkul are
the same as stated by the Imam (A); although he (A) does not explicitly
state the other two or three pillars. After mentioning the explicit and
implicit preliminaries - that whatever God Almighty does is welcome
because in it lies one’s good and benefit - the preliminaries which
guide to the station of
tawakkul, he (A) draws the conclusion and says, “Then have
tawakkul on God.”
Know that
tafwid is
also different from
tawakkul, and so also
thiqah is
different
from these two. Hence each of the three has been considered a different
station on the wayfarer’s path. The Khwajah says:
التَّفْوِيضُ أَلْطَفُ إشَارَةً وَأَوْسَعُ مَعْنىً مِنَ التَّوَكُّلِ. التَّوَكُّلُ شُعْبَةٌ مِنْهُ.
That is,
tafwid is
subtler and more refined than
tawakkul, for
tawfid, means
that the devotee should see no power and capacity in himself and that
he should consider himself ineffectual and regard God as All-effectual.
This is not so in
tawakkul, for the
mutawakkil makes God his own substitute, one in charge of his affairs, for attaining that which is good and beneficial.
Tafwid is
wider and
tawakkul is
a branch of it, because
tawakkul is
in regard to one’s interests and
tafwid is in regard to absolutely all the affairs.
Moreover,
tawakkul does not occur except after the presence
of its cause, that is the matter in regard to which the devotee comes to
rely upon God. An example of it is the
tawakkul of the Apostle (S) and his Companions in regard to security from the evil of the idolaters, at the time when they were told:
﴿الَّذِينَ قَالَ لَهُمْ النَّاسُ إِنَّ
النَّاسَ قَدْ جَمَعُوا لَكُمْ فَاخْشَوْهُمْ فَزَادَهُمْ إِيمَانًا
وَقَالُوا حَسْبُنَا اللَّهُ وَنِعْمَ الْوَكِيلُ.﴾
Those unto whom men said, ‘Lo! the people have gathered
against you, therefore fear them’. But it increased them in faith and
they said, ‘God is sufficient for us and an excellent trustee is He’
(3:173)
Tafwid, however, is mostly antecedent to its referent cause, as indicated by the supplication narrated from the Apostle of God (S):
اللَّهُمَّ إنِّي أَسْلَمْتُ نَفْسِي إلَيْكَ وأَلْجَأْتُ ظَهْرِي إلَيْكَ وَفَوَّضْتُ أَمْرِي إلَيْكَ.
My God, I surrender my self to Thee; I seek refuge with Thee, and I hand over my matter to Thee.
At times
tafwid is
subsequent to the occurrence of its cause, such as in the case of the
tafwid of the believer belonging to the Pharaoh’s people. (40:44)
The account given above is a condensed translation of the exposition by the famous ‘
arif ‘Abd al-Razzaq Kashani of the words of the perfect ‘
arif
Khwajah ‘Abd Allah al-Ansari, and that which the Khwajah says is also
substantially the same. However, I have reservations about considering
tawakkul to be a branch of
tafwid, and there is an obvious lack of rigor in regarding
tafwid as being the more general of the two. Also, there is no reason to regard
tawakkul as being subsequent to the cause, for
tawakkul can be both antecedent as well as subsequent.
As to the words of the holy tradition,
فَتَوَكَّلْ عَلَى اللهِ بِتَفْوِيضِ ذَلِكَ إلَيْهِ.
Possibly, since
tawakkul is
accompanied by viewing oneself as being in charge of one’s affairs - because in
tawakkul one makes God one’s
wakil in an affair that he deems as pertaining to himself - the Imam (A) wished to lift the questioner from the station of
tawakkul to that of
tafwid, making
him understand that God Almighty is not your substitute and deputy in
regard to the charge of your affairs; rather, He is the master of His
own realm and the Lord of His own kingdom (to which you and your affairs
belong). In
Manazil al-sai’rin, the Khwajah has also pointed out this while discussing the third degree of
tawakkul.
And as to
thiqah (reliance), it is different from
tawakkul and
tafwid, as the Khwajah says:
الثِّقَةُ سَوَادُ عَيْنِ التَّوَكلُِّ وَنُقْطَةُ دَائِرَةِ التَّفْوِيضِ وَسُوَيْدَاءُ قَلْبِ التَّسْلِيمِ.
Thiqah is the eye of tawakkul, the (moving) point of the circle of tafwid, and the inmost heart of taslim (surrender).
That is, the three stations cannot be attained without
thiqah. Rather
thiqah on God Almighty is the soul of those stations, and the devotee cannot attain them without
thiqah. This allows us to understand the Imam’s allusion to it, after the mention of
tawakkul and
tafwid, when he says:
ثِقْ فِيهَا وَفِي غَيْرِهَا.
