Know Yourself

342 Pages·2009·1.51 MB·English

by  Eralp K

AHMED HULUSI ^

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KNOW YOURSELF

AHMED HULUSI
^ KNOW YOURSELF
“Say: ‘I believe in ALLAH and then remain firm on the
straight path.”
Hz. MOHAMMED (a.s.)

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HAVING AN ENQUIRING MIND IS HALF WAY TO
ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE.
Hz. MOHAMMED (a.s.)

Whether you think you know the reality of yourself or
you know ALLAH, say ALLAH and then leave all the
rest! If you wish, you may continue to spend your
whole life with gossiping instead!
AHMED HULUSI
AHMED HULUSI ^
CONTENTS

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE ---------------------------------------- 8
EDITOR’S NOTE -------------------------------------------------- 14
INTRODUCTION ------------------------------------------------- 16
WERE OUR 'SOULS' CREATED BEFORE OUR BIOLOGICAL
BODIES? ----------------------------------------------------------- 22
COMPREHENDING THE SUPREME SIGNIFICANCE OF THE
INITIAL LETTER 'B' IS THE FOREMOST ISSUE -------------- 28
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FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES ---------------------------------- 34
THE IMPORTANCE OF LIVING IN THE PRESENT MOMENT
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 40
MANKIND IS ASLEEP; ONLY WHEN THEY DIE, DO THEY
WAKE UP! -------------------------------------------------------- 44
EXTINCTION OF THE SELF IN ALLAH IS IMPOSSIBLE! ---- 72
THE SPIRITUAL PATH DEVIATING HUMANITY FROM THE
TRUTH IS NOTHING MORE THAN A RELIGIOUS
ORGANISATION ------------------------------------------------- 74
UNLESS IMAGINATIVE FACULTIES ARE ABANDONED,
UNITY CAN NEVER BE ATTAINED ---------------------------- 78
SUFISM IS THE PURSUIT OF SELF-CONSCIOUS PEOPLE 80
THE KEY TO KNOWING ONE'S SELF ------------------------- 84
ON THE SUBJECT OF BEHOLDING THE DIVINE TRUTH -- 88
^ KNOW YOURSELF
THE SPIRITUAL PATH DEMANDS COMPLETE SURRENDER
TO THE SHEIKH -------------------------------------------------- 94
THE LION TATTOO -------------------------------------------- 102
THE CONCEPT OF UNITY ACCORDING TO IMAM GHAZALI
-------------------------------------------------------------------- 104
THE CONCEPT OF UNITY ACCORDING TO ABDUL QADIR
AL-JILANI -------------------------------------------------------- 110
UNDERSTANDING OF THE ONENESS OF ALLAH -------- 112
THERE IS NOTHING IN EXISTENCE EXCEPT THE

MANIFESTATION OF HIS DIVINE GLORY ----------------- 116
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HE REVEALS HIMSELF IN WHATEVER FORM HE PLEASES
-------------------------------------------------------------------- 120
THE CONCEPT OF MAN AND THE HOMO-SAPIENS
SPECIES (MODERN HUMANS) ------------------------------ 124
THE DIVINE TRUTH IS IMMUTABLE REALITY; WHAT
ABOUT MAN? -------------------------------------------------- 132
DOES THE DIVINE TRUTH EVER WORSHIP? ------------- 138
PEOPLE WILL SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR
OWN ACTIONS ------------------------------------------------- 144
TAKING THE QUANTUM LEAP IN CONSCIOUSNESS --- 150
WHIRLPOOLS -------------------------------------------------- 156
THE STATIONS OF THE SELF (From a Classical
Perspective) ---------------------------------------------------- 162
OUR ENEMY, THE FACULTY OF IMAGINATION --------- 174
AHMED HULUSI ^
THE SPIRITUAL ASCENSION ---------------------------------- 182
A DETAILED EXPLANATION OF THE SPIRITUAL
ASCENSION ------------------------------------------------------ 196
ON THE SUBJECT OF THE ANGELS-------------------------- 214
HIS DIVINE PRESENCE EXTENDS TO EVERYTHING THAT
TRANSPIRES ----------------------------------------------------- 232
SELF REALISATION --------------------------------------------- 238
RATHER THAN SIMPLY SAYING WORDS, ACT UPON
WHAT YOU BELIEVE ------------------------------------------- 244
THE HUMAN BEING APPOINTED AS THE CALIPH, 6
WHETHER MAN OR WOMAN ------------------------------- 250
THE NIGHT OF POWER --------------------------------------- 254
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LORD AND ALLAH --------- 264
WHAT IS IMPLIED BY THE DESCENSION OF ANGELS? - 268
THE ASSEMBLY OF THE SAINTS ----------------------------- 276
THE DUTIES OF THE ANGELS -------------------------------- 286
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE BRAIN AND
SPIRITUALITY ---------------------------------------------------- 294
THE SPIRIT OF THE SYSTEM --------------------------------- 298
IS IT ANGELIC INSPIRATION OR SATANIC TEMPTATION?
--------------------------------------------------------------------- 306
THE DURATION OF THE NIGHT OF POWER -------------- 310
WHAT IS EXERCISING SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY? ---------- 316
^ KNOW YOURSELF
WHAT IS MEANT BY THE JUSTICE OF ALLAH? ---------- 320
WHAT IS DIVINE COMPOSITION (TARKIB)? ------------- 328
GLOSSARY OF TERMS ---------------------------------------- 336

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AHMED HULUSI ^

^

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

Dear Readers,

Although most people are preoccupied with earning their
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livelihoods and pay little attention to spiritual matters, every
person has an inherent desire to know the absolute truth.
When this dormant power comes to the surface and awakens
in some people, they gain a number of spiritual perceptions.

It was Ahmed Hulusi who gave me this insight right from the
very beginning, which prompted me to immediately translate
this book into English. Ahmed Hulusi is an Islamic
contemporary Sufi from Turkey who dedicates much of his
life to instructing people on the true meaning of Islam and
the path of real Sufism. He has written well over 30 books so
far, and his primary goal in writing them is to inform those
who know little or nothing about the real Islam and to
eventually lead them toward understanding. This current
book is the translation of one of his many books. It is entitled
‘Kendini Tani’ in Turkish, which is translated into English as
‘Know Yourself’. By presenting intellectual and
knowledgeable arguments appropriate for the modern era in
this book, Ahmed Hulusi leads the reader through an in-depth
^ KNOW YOURSELF
study, the purpose of which is to unveil the ultimate secrets
and mysteries involved in knowing oneself and knowing Allah.

The central theme of this book is that there is nothing in
existence except the One. According to Ahmed Hulusi, the
contingent and the necessary were never separate from one
another; in fact, they existed from eternity as one. Indeed,
the only difference is that the aspect of unity is real, while
that of plurality is illusory. Reality is one, but its names are
many and it is this plurality which becomes the cause of
multiplicity. He points out further that the only true existence
belongs to the One, and it is that One which is visible in all

manifestations. ‘Things’ have no existence in themselves
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except as places of manifestation or reflections of the
expressions of primordial Unity.

This book will also address a very important issue that is
mostly misinterpreted by the Sufi circles in our present time
and this is the concept of the oneness of Allah. Indeed, if you
know yourself as nothing, then you truly know your Lord.
However, you cannot know your Lord by making yourself
nothing. Many a wise man claims that in order to know one's
Lord, one must denude oneself of the signs of one's
existence, efface identity and finally rid oneself of one's self.
This is a big mistake. How can a thing that does not exist try
to get rid of its existence? If you think that to know Allah
depends on you ridding yourself of yourself, then you are
guilty of attributing partners to Allah, the only unforgivable
sin, because you are claiming that there is another existence
besides Allah, the all-existent.
AHMED HULUSI ^
I would like to stress that the masculine ‘He’ is used in this
book as the personal pronoun denoting the existence of
Divine Benevolence. There is of course no gender whatsoever
to the Divine Reality, either real or implied. The word ‘He’ is
the closest realistic usage; that is, it is the practical translation
for the Arabic word ‘Hu’, which is the third person pronoun
denoting the masculine gender when used in human
contexts. However, when used in the context of referring to
the Divine, it is genderless and, in reality, it is another one of
the Divine Names and Attributes indicating ‘His’ existence. It
should be noted that while the masculine pronoun ‘He’ is
used in both Arabic and English to denote Allah, ‘He’ is
nonetheless transcendentally beyond any gender. In order to
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add to the understanding and the translation of the concepts
discussed in the book, my efforts were concentrated on the
following points:

1) I have varied the translation of the Arabic Allah and ‘God’.
By doing this, I hope to emphasise the distinctiveness of the
Arabic notion of deity, while avoiding the presupposition that
the Allah mentioned in the Koran is not some ‘other being’
posed in opposition to what is called ‘God’ in the west.

2) Strictly speaking, the book cannot possibly be a literal
word-for-word translation of the original text. Therefore, I
must stress that not all sections in the Turkish original lent
themselves to translation with equal ease. Some expressions
in the original were therefore not just translated, but also
adapted to the English usage. Indeed, in doing so, I have
departed from a strictly literal rendering wherever necessary
in the interest of coherent usage. Hence, many texts have
been substantially rewritten and even new texts have been