The Generations · The Friends of God
quddisa sirruhu — may his secret be sanctified
Bistam, Khorasan
The sultan of the realized (Ārifīn), the decisive argument for the seekers of truth, the divine caliph, the infinite pillar, fully matured in the world of disappointment, the master of the age, Abu Yazīd al-Bisṭāmi ق. He was the greatest of shaykhs and the mightiest of God's friends.
His path continues ↓His portrait is his lamp: no image survives, and none is needed.
He was the proof of the Lord and caliph in reality. He was the axis of the world and the ground of its supports. His austerities and wonders were many. He had a penetrating vision into spiritual secrets and realities and a profound earnestness. He was constantly at the waystations of proximity and awe, and he was drowned in the fire of love. He always kept his body engaged in struggle and his heart in contemplation. His accounts of the hadith were outstanding. No one before him had the ability to infer the meanings of the path that he did.
In this way one can say that it was he who wholly dominated the field. His perfection is so apparent that Junaid (al Baghdādi ق) said, "Bāyazīd among us is like Gabriel ﵇ among the angels." Junaid ق also said, "The final arena for pilgrims entering into unity is Bāyazīd's starting point. All true believers who reach the start of his tracks turn back, collapse, and disappear." The truth of this is what Bāyazīd himself said, "Two hundred years will pass over a garden before a rose like us blossoms again."
I want not to want, except what He wants.
All that I have done I reckon but as dust. Whatever Thou hast seen of me not pleasing to Thy Presence, do Thou draw a line of pardon through it. And wash the dust of disobedience from me; for I have myself washed away the dust of the presumption that I have obeyed Thee.
I stood with the pious but I did not progress with them. I stood with the warriors in the cause but I did not progress a single step with them. I stood with those who pray excessively and those who fast excessively, but I did not progress a footstep. Then I said, "O God, what is the way to You?" and God said, "Leave yourself and come".
Days of the Islamic calendar kept in his memory — each opens in the prayer book.
