Three Degrees of the Word of Oneness

According to one of the mashāyikh there are three degrees, three marātib, of tawḥīd, of kalimat al-tawḥīd, lā ilāha illallāh. Before them, one thing: when a person says lā ilāha illallāh with absence of mind, it is useless to him. To be saying lā ilāha illallāh — making dhikr of Allah (swt) — while looking at an iPhone and scrolling through the songs on it: that is not dhikr. A person needs to be present, in mind and in heart, when he is making dhikr of Allah (swt). After that there are three marātib, three darajāt.

The first: lā ilāha illallāh means lā maʿbūda illallāh — there is nothing in the universe worthy of worship except Allah, the One absolutely worthy of worship, al-maʿbūd al-muṭlaq, Allah (swt). If anything other than Allah (swt) is in the heart — jobs, children, family, wealth, cars, position — if squatters come and live in the heart other than Allah (swt), then this is not true tawḥīd, not true kalimat al-tawḥīd, not true lā ilāha illallāh. It is what the hypocrites, the munāfiqūn, say: they pretend to be Muslim, and yet in their hearts they have everything else. This is a sign of nifāq in a Muslim, and so it is worthless. Yes — legally, sharʿan, according to the jurists, the fuqahāʾ, because a person has said lā ilāha illallāh before witnesses he is regarded as a Muslim: no problem. He shall be buried in a Muslim cemetery — yes; he may keep his wife under his nikāḥ, no problem; he may inherit from his Muslim parents, no problem; he may carry his Muslim name, no problem. But in the sight of Allah (swt), the One who constantly looks into the heart, this kalimah is not a good kalimah, so far as that person's condition is concerned. It has to be turned into a living reality. How?

The second degree is that there is no objective in life, nothing in life, nothing to please, except Allah: lā maqṣūda illā hū. We live for Allah; we die for Allah; we do things for Allah; everything is for the purpose of pleasing Allah (swt). A person lives through Islam, lives with Islam, lives in Islam, through this kalimah — everything from the mundane to the profound, everything from the small to the great; every action and every transaction in life, personal and public, private and social, has to pass through this membrane. This concept of pleasing Allah (swt) has to be within the heart. A person wants to buy something: is it ḥalāl or ḥarām in Islam? — that is the first question he asks. He is going to invest in such and such: is it ḥalāl or ḥarām in Islam? He is going to marry this person: is he allowed to, or not allowed to, in Islam? He wants to eat this: is it ḥarām or ḥalāl in Islam? Everything is looked at from the perspective, through the spectacles, of Islam. Everything a person seeks and does, from the most mundane thing in the morning to the most prestigious thing he ever does in his life, the biggest choices and the smallest, everything is for the sake of Allah, for the good pleasure, the riḍā, of Allah. This is the second degree: lā maqṣūda illā hū; and it is expressed in the words taken as a motto, ilāhī anta maqṣūdī wa riḍāka maṭlūbī — my Lord, You are my aim, and Your good pleasure is what I seek.

The third degree, according to the scholars, is lā mawjūda illallāh. This is the reality; but this reality cannot come into the heart, into the inner secret, the sirr, the innermost heart, without the first two steps being realised first. It is to see nothing except the names of Allah (swt) and the manifestations, tajalliyāt, of the power of Allah (swt); to see everything as His creation; to see nobody as anything, and only say subḥānAllāh. Head and heart are always in prostration to lā mawjūda illā hū: there is nothing except Allah; He is the One who creates everything; everything is dependent on Him. Such a person depends on nobody except Allah, because Allah is the only being that is eternal and constant, and everything else changes, comes and goes. Lā mawjūda illallāh.

It should by now be understood without any difficulty that making dhikr is compulsory upon every Muslim, and that there is no limit to dhikr: it can be made under all conditions; it can be made aloud or silently, in the heart or on the tongue. Nonetheless it is compulsory, farḍ, for Muslims to keep their tongues moist with the dhikr of Allah (swt); it is the first duty after īmān to remember Allah (swt). The methods of making dhikr, the Sunnah method, the masnūn method, are set out in the parts before this.