Book
AN EXCERPT FROM
THE
FOUNDATIONS
OF THE
KARKARIYA
ORDER
The Foundations outlines the spiritual principles and practices of the Karkariya Sufi Order and their basis in the Quranand the Sunnah. It covers key concepts such as the Pact (al-ʿahd), the Sacred Dance (al-ḥaḍra), and the invocation of the Singular Name (al-ism al-mufrad), guiding disciples on their path to divine knowledge and spiritual growth.
By Shaykh Mohamed Faouzi al-Karkari
Translated from the Arabic
by Dr. Yousef Casewit, Khalid Williams,
and Jamil Zaghdoudi
Originally published by Les 7 Lectures
In the Arabic language
In the Terminology of the Karkariya Order
It is the manifestation-site of the Named; the original undifferentiation and root of the names; the foundation of the pure meanings, and their secrets. It is that through which the vocable becomes realized without becoming separated from the Named. The Name is neither the Named-in-Itself nor other-than-It, but rather the guide and the Path through the levels of existence to the Essence.
In the Holy Qurʾān
The word ism and its various derivatives are mentioned 71 times in the Qurʾān, including:
God says: So eat of that over which the Name of God has been invoked, if you are believers in His signs. (Q Anʿām 6:118)
God says: ...That they may witness benefits for them and mention the Name of God, during known days, over the four-legged cattle He has provided them. (Q Ḥajj 22:28)
God says: For every community We have appointed a rite, that they might mention the Name of God over the four-leg- ged cattle He has provided them. (Q Ḥajj 22:34)
God says: Were it not for God’s repelling people, some by means of others, monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, wherein God’s Name is mentioned much, would have been destroyed. (Q Ḥajj 34:40)
God says: [It is] in houses that God has permitted to be raised and wherein His Name is remembered. He is therein glorified, morning and evening. (Q Nūr 24:36)
God says: So glorify the Name of thy Lord, the Magnificent! (Q Wāqiʿa 56:96)
God says: And invoke the Name of thy Lord morning and evening. (Q Insān 76:25)
God says: Glorify the Name of thy Lord, the Most High. (Q Aʿlā 87:1)
God says: Recite in the Name of thy Lord, Who created. (Q ʿAlaq 96:1)
In the Noble Hadith
It is narrated on the authority of Anas that God’s Messen- ger ﷺ said: “The Last Hour will not come as long as anyone says, Allāh, Allāh." (Muslim,Ṣaḥīḥ#216).
It is also narrated on the authority of Anas that God’s Mes- senger ﷺ said: “The Last Hour will not come until Allāh, Allāh is no longer uttered upon the earth.” (Muslim,Ṣaḥīḥ#215).
It is also narrated on the authority of Anas that God’s Messenger ﷺ said: “The Last Hour will not come until Allāh, Allāh is no longer uttered upon the earth; and until a woman may pass by some shoes, pick them up and say, ‘These belonged to a man;’ and until there are fifty women for every one man; and until the rain falls but the earth no longer produces plants.” (Ḥākim,Mustadrak#8626).
It is also narrated on the authority of Anas that God’s Messenger ﷺ said: “The Last Hour will not come until Allāh, Allāh is no longer uttered upon the earth; and until a woman may pass by some shoes, pick them up and say, ‘These belonged to a man;’ and until there are fifty women for every one man; and until the rain falls but the earth no longer produces plants.” (Ḥākim,Mustadrak#8626).
ʿAbd Allāh b. Mughaffal narrated that God’s Messenger ﷺ said: “Allāh, Allāh! By God, I warn you to be careful of my Companions. Do not make them objects of insults after me. Whoever loves them, it is out of love for me that he loves them; and whoever hates them, it is out of hatred for me that he hates them. Whoever offends them, offends me; and whoever offends me, offends God; and whoever offends God, he shall soon be punished.” (Tirmidhī,Jāmiʿ#3827).
The Legal Status of Invoking the Singular Name (al-Ism al-Mufrad), Allāh
There is nothing in God’s Book, nor in the Sunna of God’s Messenger ﷺ, that forbids us from invoking the Singular Name. The contention that the Companions did not invoke this way is not by any means certain, for no one but their Lord knows what they did in their solitary vigils and private supplications, nor the spiritual states that overcame them.
Abū Hurayra said: “I preserved two stores from God’s Mes- senger ﷺ. As for the first one, I have conveyed it; as for the other, if I were to convey it, this throat of mine would be cut.”(Bukhārī,Ṣaḥīḥ#118).
Now it is totally inconceivable to think that Companions refused to transmit certain knowledge, or concealed it, as this hadith seems to suggest. On the contrary, they conveyed knowledge to each individual according to what they could handle, in accordance with the well-known hadith, “Speak to people according to the capacity of their intellects.” They conveyed the station of sub- mission (islām) to the people of Islam, the station of faith (īmān) to the people of faith, and the station of spiritual excellence (iḥsān) to the people of spiritual excellence. This ensured that God and His Messenger ﷺ would not be accused of falsehood.
So Sayyidunā Abū Hurayra divulged the store of exoteric knowledge to exoteric people, those who are confined to out- ward meanings. Likewise, he divulged the store of esoteric knowledge to esoteric people, those who delve into the hidden meanings of faith. God says: Have you not considered that God has made whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is on the earth subservient unto you and has poured His Blessings upon you, both outwardly and inwardly? Among mankind are those who dispute concerning God without knowledge, without guidance, and without an illuminating Book. (Q Luqmān 31:20).
So there are outward and inward blessings, and the greatest blessing God has bestowed upon us is to guide us to His religion.
As for the claim that the revealed Law only recommends invocations that consist of complete meaningful sentences, while the Name of God is an isolated word rather than a full sen- tence, we can consider the hadith narrated by Abū Hurayra in which the Prophet ﷺ said, “God the Exalted says, ‘I am as my servant think of Me, and I am with him when he remembers Me. If he remembers Me in himself, I remember him in Myself; if he remembers Me in an assembly, I remember him in a better assembly. If he draws a hand’s span nearer Me, I draw an arm’s length nearer him; and if he draws an arm’s length nearer Me, I draw a fathom nearer him. If he comes to Me walking, I go to him running.” (Bukhārī,Ṣaḥīḥ#6883).
The one who invokes the Singular Name only calls upon God, whether in a group or alone; and God knows what he means, whether he speaks or not. Is it acceptable to think that God requires that invocation and supplication take the form of Arabic words properly conjugated and structured? What about non-Arabic speakers, or mute people, or those uneducated in grammar?
Glory be to our Lord, He Who is not confused by sounds or languages, He Who knows the intentions and desires of every soul with His pre-eternal knowledge! Likewise, mental invoca- tion is not limited by the requirements of linguistics or gram- mar, but is based on the purity of one’s innate disposition (fiṭra) and nature (sajiyya).
Moreover, the invocation of the Singular Name is a call divested of syntax, as though the invoker were saying, “O Allāh, O Allāh.” Consider how God said, Joseph, turn away from this (Q Yūsuf 12:29), addressing him directly by his name rather than saying yā Yūsuf, “O Joseph.”
Furthermore, when Umayya b. Khalaf was torturing Sayyi- dunā Bilāl under the burning sun, Bilāl cried out, Aḥad, Aḥad, “One, One!”, and the Prophet approved of this and did not censure him.
It is related that someone asked Imam Abū Bakr al-Shiblī (d. 946), “Abū Bakr, why do you say Allāh instead of lā ilāha illā Allāh?” He answered, “I need not use Him to negate other than Him.” The man said, “Tell me more, Abū Bakr.” He answered, “My tongue cannot pronounce words of denial.” The man repeated, “Tell me more, Abū Bakr.” Shiblī answered, “Say: Allāh, then leave them. (Q Anʿām 6:91).” The man cried out, and fell down dead. His family pursued Shiblī and demanded restitution for him, and took the matter to the Caliph. The Caliph sent a letter to Shiblī demanding that he explain himself. He replied, “A spirit yearned, cried out, was called home, and answered the call. What was my crime?” At this, the Caliph and his retinue cried out and said, “Leave him be, he committed no crime.”
In his Ṣaḥīḥ, Imam Muslim narrated a hadith on this matter which is authentic and as clear as can be. The hadith tells us that God’s Messenger ﷺ said, “The Last Hour will not come as long as anyone says, Allāh, Allāh. (Muslim,Ṣaḥīḥ#216). ” Why, then, is there any need to interpret this hadith away and change its meaning? How strange it is that someone may spend his life fighting against metaphorical interpretation, but as soon as he encounters a hadith or verse that does not support his school of thought, he suddenly starts twisting meanings around to fit his preconceptions!
Say, Allāh!
God says, Say, “Allāh,” then leave them to play at their vain discourse. (Q Anʿām 6:91).
Sīdī Aḥmad b. ʿAjība commented on this in his Tafsīr:
"The Sufis cite this verse as a spiritual allusion to solitude, occupying oneself exclusively with God, and paying no regard to the vanities, distractions, and turbid things that others worry about. The verse alludes to forsaking these things in order to reach the station of purity; namely witnessing the divine Sin- gularity and clinging to the secrets of the divine Oneness. To this effect, Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh al-Iskandarī describes the people of witnessing as being worthy of witnessing because “they belong to God, and to nothing apart from Him: Say, “Allāh,” then leave them to play at their vain discourse.” Those who do not understand their allusion may criticize them, for they are frozen and halt with the outer meaning. Yet the Qurʾān has not only an outer meaning but an inner meaning which is only understood by those who are lordly (rabbāniyyūn), may God benefit us through them, amen." (Ibn ʿAjība, al-Baḥr al-madīd vol. 2 p. 283).
We say that there is no duality from the perspective of union because in reality there is no existence except that of the Existentiator of existence (wājid al-wujūd). For the Real is now as He ever was, and there is nothing with Him. Existents are only vanishing shadows that do not exist except in the imagination. Thus, there is no existent thing to negate: All things perish, save His Face (Q Qaṣaṣ 28:88). This means that all things perish and pass away save the Face of the Real, meaning His Essence. All the essences are in reality passing away and vanishing. They have no existence whatsoever, whether now, or in the past, or in the future. They are as dust in the wind.
Abū Hurayra reported that God’s Messenger ﷺ said, “The truest word ever uttered by a poet is the verse of Labīd: ‘Behold! Everything apart from God is unreal.’” (Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ #4194)
A poet also said:
Four letters that dazzled my heart,
And dispelled my woes and my worries:
An Alif that acquainted creation with artistry,
A Lām that encouraged self-reproach,
Another Lām adding deep meanings,
And a Hāʾ inspiring in me love and knowledge.
And we can read in the Ḥikam:
How can it be conceived that something veils Him,
when He is the One Who manifests everything?
How can it be conceived that something veils Him,
when He is the one Who is manifest through everything?
How can it be conceived that something veils Him,
when He is the One Who is manifest in everything?
How can it be conceived that something veils Him,
when He is the One Who is manifest to everything?
How can it be conceived that something veils Him,
when He was the Manifest before the existence of anything?
How can it be conceived that something veils Him,
when He is more manifest than anything?
How can it be conceived that something veils Him,
when He is the One besides Whom there is nothing?
How can it be conceived that something veils Him, when He is nearer to you than anything?
How can it be conceived that something veils Him,
when were it not for Him, nothing would exist?
What a strange thing! How could existence manifest in nothingness? Or how could the noneternal exist alongside the Eternal?
We add to this, “How can it be conceived that something veils Him, when nothing is comparable to Him?”
Sīdī Abū Madyan al-Ghawth (may God sanctify his secret) said:
Say Allāh, and leave existence and all it contains,
If your aspiration is to reach perfection.
For in truth, all things besides God
Are nonexistent, whether in sum or in detail.
Know that you and all the worlds,
Were it not for Him, would obliterate and dissolve.
That which does not exist in and of itself
Cannot possibly exist without Him.
The gnostics are annihilated, for they see naught
But the Self-Exalted, the Transcendent,
And they see that all else in truth is perishing,
In the present, the past, and the future.
So glimpse with your mind, or with your sight:
Do you see anything other than an act of His acts?
Behold existence from top to bottom,
Through an eye bolstered with reason and discernment;
You will find everything alluding to His Majesty,
Whether it speaks with its voice or its state.
All that is Upon it is Passing Away
Imam Baqlī says in his Tafsīr:
God says: All that is upon it is passing away. And the Face of thy Lord subsists, Possessed of Majesty and Bounty. (Q Raḥmān 55:26-27).
If we ponder the reality of the cosmos and its inhabitants, we perceive the truth of their nonexistence, although on the sur- face they seem to exist. This is because in reality, something that needs another thing to sustain it is by definition non-existent. The word “existence” is only used for the self-existing being, and how could a contingent being exist through itself, when it has no self to begin with? True existence is eternal existence, which is why God lauds Himself by saying: And the Face of thy Lord subsists, Possessed of Majesty and Bounty.
The reality of subsistence (baqāʾ) is only assigned to what subsists eternally. The existence of that which comes from nothing and returns to nothing is entirely different from He Who is beginningless and endless. When you witness things as they truly are, you understand that God exists in and of Him- self, while creation exists only through Him. Thus you realize the truth of passing away and subsistence, and the truth of existence and nonexistence.
God gave His creation the capacity to know His beginning- lessness and endlessness through witnessing the passing away of this lower world and its inhabitants, so that they could attain realization of this knowledge; for subsistence cannot be known unless annihilation is known first.
Imam Junayd was asked about the verse, All that is upon it is passing away, and answered: “That which is situated between two edges of annihilation is itself annihilated.” (Baqlī, ʿArāʾis vol. 3 pp 376-377).
Imam Junayd was asked about the verse, All that is upon it is passing away, and answered: “That which is situated between two edges of annihilation is itself annihilated.” (Baqlī, ʿArāʾis vol. 3 pp 376-377).
Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh al-Iskandarī (may God sanctify his secret) said:
By His divine grace, God manifested His supreme knowledge and power through His Name, to the extent that the minds of His creatures could bear it, so that they would be linked to Him. By His divine grace, He assigned a particular predisposition to his creation allowing them to know Him, and made them bear witness to what they saw, and they testified to this against them- selves when they said, Yes, indeed (Q Aʿrāf 7:172). And now, in the moment of their existence, He calls them to bear witness once more by manifesting to them His Supreme Name, Allāh, allowing them to know Him through it, facilitating its remembrance with the tongue, and making it always accessible to them, and manifesting it clearly to them in bismi’Llāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm, ‘In the Name of God, the All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful.’
His manifestation is thus so intense that He is hidden, and nothing can describe Him. His remembrance is so abundant that He is forgotten, such that He is no longer recognized. Moreover, it is through Him that affairs are rectified, and it is through His remembrance that difficulty is transformed to ease. Through Him, all needs are fulfilled, and one begins to partake in all sec- ondary causes with Him. He it is Whose heavens and earth could not contain Him, nor His throne, nor His pedestal, but only His will and the hearts of those of His servants for whom He destined good, according to the measure of it which He placed in the hearts of His faithful chosen servants by attribut- ing their servanthood to Him, and unveiling His secret to them. Exalted are His Names! (Ibn ʿAṭāʾ, al-Qaṣd al-mujarrad pp 33-34. See Khalid Williams’ transla- tion, Islamic Texts Society, 2018).
Recite in the Name of the Lord
ʿĀʾisha رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهَا related: “The first revelation given to God’s Messenger ﷺ was in the form of true dreams in his sleep, which were all as bright and clear as the rising sun. He used to go to the Cave of Ḥirāʾ and spend many nights there in worship, taking provisions with him, and then return to Khadīja for more. This went on until suddenly the truth descended upon him while he was in Ḥirāʾ. The angel came to him there and told him, ‘Recite!’ The Prophet ﷺ replied, ‘I am not a reciter.’”
[The Prophet ﷺ recalled:] “The angel took hold of me and embraced me until I could not no longer bear it, then released me and said, ‘Recite!’ I replied, ‘I am not a reciter.’ He took hold of me a second time and embraced me until I could no longer bear it, then released me and said, ‘Recite!’ I replied, ‘I am not a reciter.’ He took hold of me a third time and embraced me until I could no longer bear it, then released me and said, Recite in the Name of thy Lord Who created, created man from a blood clot. Recite! Thy Lord is most noble, Who taught by the Pen, taught man that which he knew not.” (Q ʿAlaq 96:1-5).
[ʿĀʾisha continued:] “Then he returned home with the reve- lation, trembling with terror. He went in to Khadīja and said, “Cover me! Cover me!” She covered him till his fear was over, and then he said, ‘Khadīja, what is wrong with me?’ He told her everything that had happened and said, ‘I fear for myself.’ Khadīja said, ‘Never! Rejoice, for by God, God would never disgrace you. You keep good relations with your kin, speak the truth, help the poor and the destitute, serve your guests gener- ously, and assist righteous causes.’ Khadīja then accompanied him to her cousin Waraqa, who had become a Christian during the pre-Islamic era and used to write the Gospels in Arabic. He was an old man and had lost his eyesight. Khadīja said to him, ‘Cousin! Listen to your nephew’s story.’ Waraqa asked, ‘Nephew, what have you seen?’ The Prophet ﷺ described what he had seen. Waraqa said, ‘This is the same Nomos that was sent down to Moses. I wish I were young and could live to see the day when your people drive you out.’ God’s Messenger ﷺ asked, ‘Will they drive me out?’ Waraqa replied, ‘Yes. Never did a man bring the like of what you have brought, but that he was treated with hos- tility. If I should remain alive till your day comes, I will lend you all my support.’ But Waraqa died shortly afterwards, and the revelation also paused for a while, until the Prophet ﷺ became so despondent that he almost flung himself from a mountain- top. But whenever he went to the edge to throw himself off, the angel would appear to him and say, ‘Muḥammad, you are truly God’s Messenger’, and this would set his soul at ease, and he would go back. Then after more time passed without any fur- ther revelation, he would get into the same state, and it would all happen again.” (Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ #6497).
So the first verse that has ever been revealed was, Read in the Name of thy Lord. For the Beloved ﷺ was totally extinguished in the presence of union, immersed in the ocean of divine proximity, and so the presence of the Name knocked upon his blessed heart to remind him of the reading of pre-eternity. The Hamza, the first letter to be revealed beneath the line, symbol- izes the hiddenness of the greatest secret. When his ﷺ heart was opened, the pre-eternal Aḥmadan reality surfaced above the veils of the line, and so the Muḥammadan image became man- ifest. This is the secret of why the word Iqraʾ, “Read” (إقــرأ), is written with a Hamza under the line in the beginning, and another above the line at the end.
So he read in the Name of His Lord, Allāh, the Unifying Name that refers to the Essence, the realities of His Existence and the secret of His Essentiality. God says: Read your book! On this Day, your soul suffices as a reckoner against you. (Q Isrāʾ 17:14.).
Thus, because of God’s jealous protectiveness toward His chosen Beloved, he read the lines of his pre-eternal being for himself and through himself, so that no one, whether angel, jinn, or man, could ever know the secret existing between him and His Lord.
So the Name led him to the Named, and whereas Sayyidunā Adam received the knowledge of the names, Sayyidunā Muḥammad ﷺ received the knowledge of the Named. Because of Him, the gates of eternity were opened, and the deep reali- ties of Oneness and the Lights of Self-Sufficiency poured out.
His reading concerned what was beyond knowledge, written upon the page of his essence with the pen of the Name. Thus, the way of God’s folk who came after him is to invoke the Singular Name Allāh, in order to ascend through the stages of pre-eternity. Their knowledge lies beyond the stages of worship, and it is for this reason that the majority of people have always rejected and denigrated them, for their minds are limited to a superficial understanding of religious obligations.
To this effect, Sīdī Aḥmad al-ʿAlawī (may God sanctify his secret) said:
O you who wish to know my art,
Ask the Divine about me;
Humans do not recognize me,
For my states are hidden from them.
Seek me in the midst of nearness,
Beyond the state of worship;
As for the world and its containers,
No part of me remains therein.
We also said in a poem of ours:
Invoke the Supreme Name,
And cleave to the spiritual;
Visualize its letters, made of Light,
And fold up your mortal human nature.
The Name and the Named,
Comprise the station of Oneness.
The invocation of the Singular Name is thus one of the foundational principles of the Karkariya Order. It illuminates the disciple’s spirit, and gathers together all the divine secrets. He who abandons it leaves the path of the Sufis as well as the Sunna of the Beloved and the Book of God, for there is no reading except in the Name of God, and the Name that brings together all His Attributes and points to His Essence is indeed the Name Allāh.
When the disciple masters the visualization of the letters of the Name, his heedlessness disappears, relatively if not totally. This visualization is done by means of a wooden tablet that we call al-wāsiṭa, which helps the disciple to engrave those letters in his heart. When the luminosity of the Name’s letters flow through his heart, his human nature will be enfolded spontaneously, because human nature and the letters of the Name cannot come together in the same heart. This is the secret of the verse: Truly God forgives not that any partner be ascribed unto Him, but He forgives what is less than that for whomso- ever He will. (Q Nisāʾ 4:48).
God’s jealousy and glory do not allow for the presence of aught besides Him in the station of divinity. If the human nature of the disciple disappears and his heart becomes able to contain all the letters of the Name, he will perceive the secret of the mul- tiplicity of oneness, whereupon that which never existed will pass away, and that which always was will subsist.
