The Fifth Flash

The Fifth Flash

A treatise was to be written that would explain in fifteen degrees a highly significant meaning of the verse, “For us God suffices, and He is the Best Disposer of Affairs,”(3:173) but it has been postponed for now since it would have been concerned more with reflective thought and the recollection of God than with reality and intellectual knowledge. In fact, the important treatise called The Stairway of the Practices of the Prophet and Antidote for the Sickness of Innovation was originally known as the Fifth Flash, but since it comprised eleven points, it was designated the Eleventh Flash, and the Fifth Flash’s place remained unoccupied. ∗∗∗

The Sixth Flash

The Sixth Flash

Again, there was to have been a treatise explaining in fifteen or twenty degrees of reflective thought the important truth stated in numerous verses of the Qur’an and expressed by the phrase: “There is no power and strength save through God, the Exalted, the Mighty.” [^1] , [^2] Like the Fifth Flash, this consisted of degrees I had perceived in myself and observed through reflection and remembrance of God in my journeying of the spirit. Therefore, since it was more a means to illumination and spiritual pleasure than intellectual knowledge and reality, it seemed appropriate to include it at the end of the Flashes, which are about reality, rather than among them.

[^1]: See, Bukhārī, Tahajjud, 21; Nasā’ī, Sahw, 83.

[^2]: See Note above.