A Heart Awake Even in Sleep

The fourth and last of these hearts belongs to the prophets and to the foremost among the close friends of Allah (swt), khawāṣṣ al-awliyāʾ. Such a heart's peace lies only in the constant witnessing, mushāhadah, of Allah's own attributes, ṣifāt — not a single instant given over to anything else, not even in sleep. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said of himself: my eyes sleep, but my heart does not sleep.

There is the account related by Shaykh Maḥmūd Esad Coşan of a journey on which he counted himself very fortunate: he was travelling with his own teacher, Shaykh Muḥammad Zāhid Kotku, to Madīnah for ʿumrah. Kotku was by then elderly and worn from the travel, and because they had arrived late they had to stay in a house rather than a hotel; many people wanted to put them up, and they stayed with one of Kotku's murīds, one of the brotherhood, whose house was small, so that he gave them a single room — which meant, Coşan says, sleeping in the same room as his teacher, an honour. Coşan relates that once Kotku had made his ablution, wuḍūʾ, and completed his devotions — being exhausted from a full day's travel by bus — he lay down to sleep; Coşan covered him with a blanket and carried on preparing for the evening himself, until Kotku began to snore. Yet at that very moment, Coşan says — by Allah — he could hear, in a steady and beautiful rhythm, the remembrance of Allah — Allāh, Allāh, Allāh — and looked about for where the sound was coming from, only to find his teacher, physically, snoring before him. Coming nearer, he says — by Allah — he heard it plainly: a beautiful, rhythmic dhikr coming, so far as he could tell, out of his teacher's mouth at the same time as the snoring, he had no idea how, even as he slept — the body given over to sleep, the heart remaining awake. Such is the state of the prophets and of those closest to Allah (swt) among the awliyāʾ: their hearts are never idle.

The greatest sin such a heart could commit is to lose even a single instant, a fraction of a second, of attention toward Allah (swt) — never, for the awliyāʾ of this calibre, heedless, ghāfil, not even for the briefest moment. And yet, for the rest, even in the act of making dhikr, even inside the mosque, even during prayer itself, one of the highest forms of dhikr there is, attention wanders, sleep comes, and the mind turns to everything else. May Allah (swt) forgive it.

Of these same highest hearts, Allah (swt) also gives the account of Ibrāhīm (peace be upon him), in the two hundred and sixtieth āyah of Sūrat al-Baqarah^****, who said to Allah (swt): Lord of the worlds, show me Yourself — let me see You — let me see how You give life to the dead:

Allah (swt) asked him whether he did not already believe; Ibrāhīm answered that he did, but wanted his own heart set fully at rest, muṭmaʾinn, with the certainty of it. He was told to take four birds, cut them into pieces, and set a portion of each upon separate hills, then to call them — and by Allah's leave the birds came back to life and flew to him. Even a heart that already believes may ask for the further peace of direct certainty, and such a request is answered.