In the Name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful

God bears witness that there is no deity except Him.

Sadegh Khademi

Divine Love and Nearness

1404 Solar Hijri | Issue No. 6

Bibliographic Information

Author: Khademi, Sadegh, 1356–

Title: Divine Love and Nearness / Sadegh Khademi

Place of Publication: Shiraz

Publisher: Sobhe Entezar

Year of Publication: 1404

Physical Description: 493 pages

ISBN: 978-622-7426–

Cataloguing Status: CIP

Notes: Includes bibliography

Book Information

Book Title: Divine Love and Nearness

Author: Sadegh Khademi

Page Layout and Cover Design: Sadegh Khademi

Format: Vaziri

Print Run: 200 copies

Edition: First Edition

ISBN: 978-622-7426–

Author Contact: 09981197776

Price of Printed Version (including postal delivery): 850,000 Tomans

All rights reserved by the author.

Preface: The Status and Significance of “Love and Divine Proximity”

The noble book Manāzil al-Sāʾirīn ilā al-Ḥaqq, authored by Khwāja ʿAbdullāh Anṣārī (d. 481 AH), the Sage of Herat, is among the most precious works of Islamic mysticism. This book, together with the commentary of Kamāl al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Razzāq Kāshānī (d. 736 AH), one of the distinguished followers of the school of Ibn ʿArabī, attained even greater richness and became an independent work in its own right. Both Khwāja Anṣārī and the commentator Kāshānī belong to the gnostics of love. Their method of spiritual wayfaring is neither ascetic nor centred upon outward devotional formalism; rather, it proceeds along the path of love and inward reality.

Khwāja Anṣārī systematised the stages of spiritual wayfaring, practical mysticism, and divine unitive knowledge with an ordered structure, balanced expressions, unparalleled precision, subtlety, and depth, articulated in an elevated and refined language. In the fifth Islamic century, he portrayed the ultimate manifesto of practical mysticism based upon the “integration of outward form and inward meaning”, together with rigorous adherence to the outward dimensions of the Sacred Law.

Kāshānī’s Commentary: The Convergence of Two Mystical Schools

In his commentary, Kāshānī represents the precise point of convergence and synthesis between “Khurasanian mysticism” and “Andalusian mysticism”. He interprets the practical stations of Khwāja Anṣārī through the theoretical foundations of the “Unity of Being”, in a scholarly rather than experiential and directly realised manner. Where Anṣārī speaks of an experiential and realised tawḥīd, Kāshānī refers it back to the theoretical unity of being. Where Khwāja Anṣārī gives primacy to pain, need, and the existential states of the wayfarer, Kāshānī approaches the text through a scholarly lens grounded in his training in the theoretical mysticism of Ibn ʿArabī.

The Geometry of the Path and the Levels of the Unseen

In this work, Khwāja Anṣārī organises Qurʾānic visionary mysticism (the Khurasanian school) as a “path-centred” system within a decimal structure (ten chapters and one hundred stations), extending from the “Beginnings” to the “Finalities”.

The reason for this limitation to ten divisions and their ordered continuity is that the human journey toward the Truth occurs inwardly (even though it is accompanied by outward assistance), and the levels of the inner unseen are six: the unseen of the jinn (the unseen of natural faculties), the unseen of the soul, the unseen of the heart, the unseen of the intellect, the unseen of the spirit, and the unseen of the unseen (the hiddenness of the Essence of Absolute Oneness).

Through ascent and progression, the soul acquires two stages prior to the station of the heart: first the commanding soul, then the reproachful soul, and then the tranquil soul. The heart possesses a level known as the “secret”, situated between intellect and spirit. The spirit has a level called the “hidden”, attained upon ascending to the station of unity. Thus, in the realm of the unseen there are ten levels, and within each level one of these ten divisions appears, each encompassing ten foundational stations.

The importance of Khwāja Anṣārī’s text is such that for centuries it has been central to instruction in mystical seminaries. Nevertheless, his text is concise, dense, and replete with allusions, rendering it inaccessible without commentary. His language combines rhymed prose, brevity, and direct citation of Qurʾānic verses.

Typology of Wayfarers and the Methodology of Beloved-Centred Mysticism

Manāzil al-Sāʾirīn presents an account of two types of spiritual wayfaring and divine gnosis among the people of love:

1. The lover who is sought, who benefits from attraction prior to wayfaring and experiences the finalities before the beginnings. In precise terminology, this commentary refers to him as the realised gnostic and the one united with the Beloved.
2. The loving seeker, who requires wayfaring before attraction and effort before grace. In this commentary he is referred to as the lover. He must first traverse the beginnings and proceed from the beginnings to the finalities.

Kāshānī regards transience and establishment as the two principal poles of the spiritual path. Transience represents the additional and imaginal existence of the wayfarer, whereas the sun of establishment is the light of witnessing the Exalted Truth and the complete annihilation of duality within oneness.

Final Summary and Conclusion

The introduction to Manāzil al-Sāʾirīn speaks both of the beginnings of the people of love and connects them to the finalities, to essential annihilation and absolute unitive tawḥīd — that is, the tawḥīd of the Truth by His Essence for His Essence, within the forms of manifestation. As stated by the Commander of the Faithful, ʿAlī (peace be upon him): “A light that shines from the dawn of pre-eternity and whose آثار radiate upon the forms of tawḥīd.” The path of the people of love reaches the pinnacle of courtesy and gnosis in the following noble verse:

“God bears witness that there is no god but He.”

Ṣādeq Khādamī
Long live the Exalted Truth
Āzar 1404