Al-Hujwiri on Imam Ali (as) – Abdur Rahman’s Corner

Peace, one and all…

A beautiful testimony to the exalted position of Hz. Imam Ali (as) in Sufi teaching:

Among them [i.e. the Sufis] is the son of Muhammad’s uncle, he who drowned in the ocean of trying affliction, and was consumed in the fire of loving passion, (gharīq-i baḥr-i balāʼ wa ḥarīq-i nār-i walā) the leader of the saints and the pure ones (muqtadā-yi awliyāʼ wa’l-aṣfiyāʼ). In this Path he holds a place of tremendous honour and elevated degree. He had complete mastery over the precise expression of the principles of the supernal realities, such that Junayd said of him, ‘ʿAlī is our master as regards principles and affliction (shaykhunā fi’l-uṣūl wa’l-balāʾ)’… That is, ʿAlī is the Imam of this Path in respect of both theoretical knowledge and practical  application (andar ʿilm wa muʿāmalat imām-i īn ṭarīqat), for the adepts of Sufism call the knowledge of this Path its  principles’, while its practice is summed up in the endurance of affliction.

Ali al-Hujwiri, Kashf al-Mahjub