Of these, the first is the equivalent of obligatory, the second, close to obligatory, and the third, Sunna.

Since the reality of the matter is thus, my conjec­ture is that if such persons as Shaykh 'Abd al-Qadir Gilani³
(May God be pleased with him) and Shah Naqshband⁴
(May God be pleased with him) and Imam-i Rabbani (May God be pleased with him) were alive today, they would expend all their efforts on strengthening the truths of faith and tenets of Islam. For it is through them that eternal happiness is won. Any deficiency in them results in eternal misery. A person without faith will not enter Para­dise, but very many will go there without Sufism. Man cannot live without bread, but he can live with­out fruit. Sufism is the fruit, the truths of Islam, basic sustenance. In former times, through spiritual journeying from forty days to as much as forty years, a person could rise to some of the truths of faith. But now, if through Almighty God's mercy there is a way to rise to those truths in forty minutes, it surely is not sensible to remain indifferent to it.

Thus, people who have studied the thirty-three Words closely state that they have opened up just such a Qur'anic way. Since this is a fact, I am of the opinion that the Words so far written about the mys­teries of the Qur'an are a most appropriate medicine and salve for the wounds of this time, and a most beneficial light for Islam as a whole, which has been subject to the assaults of darkness, and a most right guide for those wandering bewildered in the valleys of misguidance.

You know that if misguidance arises from ignor­ ance, it is easy to dispel. Whereas if it results from science and learning, it is difficult to eliminate. In former times, only one person in a thousand was in the latter category, and only one in a thousand such people would be reformed through guidance. For such people fancy themselves. They do not know, but they think they do know. I think that Almighty God has bestowed the Words at this time, which are flashes of the Qur'an's miraculousness, as an anti­dote to this atheistic misguidance.

The Eternal One, He is the Eternal One! Said N urs i
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3. Sayyid 'Abd al-Qadir Gilani (Geylani), known as the Gawth al-A'zam, was a towering spiritual figure in the history of Islam. He lived 470/1077-561/1166. (Tr.
4. Muhammad Baha'uddin Naqshband. He was the founder of the Naqshband! Order, and died in 791/1389 in Bukhara. (Tr.)