The Balance of Truth and Law

The truth (al-haqiqa) and the law (ash-shari’a) are the two balances of a scale, and you are its heart. If you leave to go to the side of the shari’a, you become of the shari’a and you lose the inner truth of al-islam. If you go to the truth and abandon the law, you may break the law and this law is from God. Know that you are the driver of the ship and God asks you about the ship – how it moves through the sea. For this reason, hold both of the reins in your hands. Do not look to the right or to the left. Be the Noah of your time.

- Sidi Sheikh Muhammad al-Jamal ar-Rafa'i

True Prostration

Whomever Allah wishes to lift out of the turbulent water of this dark world, He picks up with His own hands and puts in the ship of surrender. This is the inner meaning of the religion, of the Qur’an, and of the judgment. If anyone is not truly prostrated before the presence of the One who gives the law, no matter how many prostrations he makes with his body, no matter how many injunctions he follows with his mind, he is not, in truth, a believer (al-mu`minin).

- Sidi Sheikh Muhammad al-Jamal ar-Rafa'i

Allah

How transcendent and immaculate is God! He has neither place, nor time, nor beginning, nor temporal continuity, nor posterior eternity, nor temporal priority, nor terminal end, and yet all the while, He is neither occupied with, nor seeks succor from, that which He has brought into being. Nonetheless, He is just in all affairs wherein His commandments are issued to people.

- Shibli in Sarraj Tusi: "Kitab al-luma"